Today marks a small victory for agrobiodiversity in Europe. Ok, a very small one. But you take your victories where you can.
Ah, the yoof of today!
On one side of the internet, a World Bank livestock specialist asks about projects dealing with young people in agriculture and rural development. And way over on the other side, an expert on security and geopolitical issues discusses the wider ramifications of a “story about wind turbines on school ground that provide most of school’s need but also a lesson on the local generation of energy to impressionable kids.” School gardens, anyone?
A key advantage for emerging economies: young demographic profiles. That means the turnover on conventional wisdom is relatively fast—as in, a good 15 years later and the bulk of the population can’t remember the old and bad ways and think only in terms of the new paradigm.
Sure, but as another article out at the weekend showed, there’s a long way to go.
Forget the stock market, invest in watermelons
When we say that local varieties are valuable — and should therefore be conserved — we usually mean that they have rare and useful traits. We don’t generally mean that they actually cost a lot of money to buy. But that’s emphatically the case for Densuke watermelons in general, and the one that’s just been sold in particular.
Nibbles: Creole cooking, Cattle, Greenhouses, Cartograms
- Seychelles’ “living botanical herbarium of Creole Culture.”
- Kerala tries to save Vechur cattle.
- Terra Madre day 3: Tom ♥ Vandana.
- Pix of how intelligent greenhouses can be used to grow huge vegetables. I wonder if these technique can be applied to regenerating accessions in genebanks
- Don’t you just love cartograms?
Nibbles: Vege-juice, Urban livestock, Seeds, Slow Food
- Drink vegetable diversity for better nutrition. Jeremy sez: “Too salty”. And asks: “Who paid?”
- “So why isn’t everyone living this locavore dream of having organic, free-range eggs for nearly nothing, right from their own backyard? Well, for one thing, it’s illegal.”
- Blogger Seed Network. Explained. Make it grow.
- Terra Madre, more notes from the Gristmill.