Not particularly inspiring at first glance, but then I googled “tule,” a word I hand’t come across before. I figured cattails would be some kind of Thypha. Tules turn out to be types of sedges, although some people seem to use the words interchangeably, or indeed together. Anyway, tules have an interesting ethnobotany in the American Southwest, along with other geophytes.
Rice ups and downs
The agricultural industry can seem pretty strange at times. Take rice, for example. There were two very contrasting stories on this crop in the news today. On the one hand, it is making a comeback in Romania, fueled by cheap land, labour and water. But on the other, acreage is plummeting in Korea. That’s due to changes in local consumption patterns and the move towards cash crops like ginseng. Given high world prices, one would have thought that Asian entrepreneurs would be jumping at the chance to supply the European market. But of course, some Asian countries have put in place export bans.
Improved varieties in West Africa
This just in from FAO’s Seed and Plant Genetic Resources Service (AGPS).
Please find below links to the West African Catalogue of Plant Species and Varieties (COAFEV). This document was prepared in the framework of the West African Seed Regulation Harmonization, which was supported by AGP. This process involved 17 West and Central African countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and of the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) and has led to the adoption of a harmonized seed regulatory framework by the ECOWAS Council of Ministers on 18 May 2008 in Abuja.
This framework provides for the establishment of the COAFEV, which is the list of varieties whose seeds can be produced and commercialized in the member states without restriction. The objective of such a system is to facilitate West African farmers’ access to a greater diversity of varieties and to foster cross-border seed trade.
Pundit in the Punjab
On the Front Lines of the Global Food Crisis is the title of what promises to be a great series of posts over at Slate. I nibbled an earlier one a couple of days back, but I think this deserves more attention. The pieces are by Mira Kamdar, a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute and the author of Planet India: The Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy and the Future of Our World. She’s touring India, and the third and latest in her despatches from the front lines is from Ludhiana in the Punjab:
If a single institution can take credit for bringing the Green Revolution to Punjab, it is Punjab Agricultural University.