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Conserving palms

Two palm stories were in the news yesterday. First, from Brazil, how a local community is changing its ways in an effort to exploit the juçara palm (Euterpe edulis) more sustainably. Then, from India, news of a biotechnological trick to determine the sex of palmyrah palms without having to wait for them to grow up.

I’ve been having to do rather more thinking about palm conservation than is altogether comfortable at work lately — coconut is such a beast, really. That, and these stories, and the need for some displacement activity got me googling. Kew and the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden seem to be at the forefront of palm conservation. There have been some successes in the field, but I’m beginning to think that at least for coconut the best bet may be Roland Bourdeix’s islet idea.

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One country’s response to the threat of climate change

“We want our farmers to grow several crops, not just one crop. We are encouraging our farmers to go into organic farming using shrubs, leaves, herbal pesticide and no chemicals involved so that we can reduce dependency on costly chemical fertilizers. We should improve our yields through applying modern farming techniques such as irrigation and water harvesting technologies. … Farmers are also being taught to alternate rows of crops that complement each other in drawing nutrients from the soil or carbon from the atmosphere. … We must diversify. We must change the methods of farming. We want to change and to achieve our desired goals in increasing household food security, increasing our yields, increasing our production. Productivity is what matters most.

So, where do you suppose all that is happening? Here.

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Leaf-green beads

Greg Laden recently posted on Green stone beads at the dawn of agriculture, an archaeological study of coloured beads, how the colours change over time, and what all that might actually mean for people interested in the evolution of people (which may well be all of us). There’s a nice chain of reasoning there, from the frequency of different colours to the times at which those frequencies change, to connections with fertility. Money quote, from the paper, via Greg:

We propose that the green color mimics the green of young leaf blades, which signify germination and embody the wish for successful crops and for success in fertility.

But go and read the thing in full.

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African vegetables gone missing

How frustrating. The excellent Agrobiodiversity Grapevine links to an article about indigenous vegetables in East Africa at Africa Science News Service. The article concerns a report Development and promotion of technologies for sustainable production and utilization of Indigenous Vegetables for nutrition security and wealth creation in Kenya, but ASNS’s link to the source of the report is broken and I cannot find it anywhere. I’d like to see what the full report has to say; the article mentions nutrition, horticulture, incomes and research, aspects of the use of African leafy vegetables that I’m sure many people are interested in.

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Entomophagy. Again

The Economist is promoting entomophagy, but I have my doubts. Yes, insects are nutritious. Yes other food is expensive. And maybe eating insects “is common in some 113 countries”. But the fact of the matter is that in other countries, I doubt that it is going to happen any time soon, no matter how good it might be for us, for the planet, for everything. I’ve eaten my share of insects; fried locusts are a favourite. And Luigi likes the odd mopane worm. We’re both entirely happy with decapod crustaceans too. But it is my considered view that outside of those 113 countries, insects are going to continue to be a hard sell.