I can’t imagine why the Jamaica Information Service should have decided to tell the world about the work of the Crop Research Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Research and Development Division. And at quite some length to boot. But I’m glad they did. Lots of interesting stuff about agrobiodiversity conservation, seed production and breeding. Now you know where to get your scotch bonnet seeds.
Bees in the UK
Another post from Danny. Maybe we should be giving him frequent flier miles. Anyway, it’s on a subject we’ve tackled before, but not, I think, from a British perspective.
Having just been interviewed for a job in Limerick, and with one panel member expressing an interest in biodiversity of ants and bees, I thought it might be interesting to post on this subject. It is also pouring with rain and blowing a gale so I have little better to do as I sit around Limerick railway station awaiting the next train to Dublin. Honey bees ‘wiped out in 10 years’, in yesterday’s Observer reports the threat posed to British bees by devastating diseases, especially the real danger that colony collapse disease will be introduced to the country.
It is estimated that bees contribute £165m a year to the economy through the pollination of fruit trees and other crops and about £12m through the sale of British honey. This is certainly an undervaluation when the other benefits of bees are considered. ‘If nothing is done about it, the honey bee population could be wiped out in 10 years,’ the Farming Minister, Lord Rooker, has admitted in the House of Lords. But, despite this importance of bees to the nation’s economy, the government has said it has no cash left to fund a research project to investigate the ‘killer’ diseases. The amount needed? The British Beekeeping Association is asking for a £8m research project that would run for five years. At a conservative estimate this is about 1% of the revenue that bees generate over the same period!
The article is accompanied by a video describing how the world’s largest pollination event in California’s almond orchards is under threat. The video also describes the interesting occupation of honeybee broker.
Mo’ better beans
Iowa State University has been awarded $450,000 by the US Agency for International Development to improve beans in Rwanda. The University’s Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods will work with local partners to see whether improving yields will result in beans that are more nutritious or more marketable or — Jackpot! — both. Nice idea, and if it succeeds a valuable contribution to fighting hunger and poverty in the region. As ever with this sort of project, however, one wonders whether specific steps will be taken to preserve the existing bean biodiversity that improved varieties will almost certainly displace.
Agriculture and learning
Even if seeds survive climate change and mass extinction in a bomb-proof vault, will anyone remember how to cultivate them?
That, for me, is the money question in an admittedly parochial article from a blog at the Chronicle of Higher Education. Should a Liberal Education Include an Agricultural Education? wonders whether American colleges should be teaching liberal arts students where food comes from, and makes several interesting points along the way. Like, for example, the fact that one can view just about any subject through an agricultural lens. But why restrict it to Liberal Arts students? (A term, incidentally, that I confess I have never fully understood.) Wouldn’t it be good, and useful, for all students to know a little bit more about the food supply and all its ramifications?
Tropical beer
You may remember a post a few days ago on how barley is being replaced by sorghum for commercial beer-brewing in West Africa. Coincidentally, Timbuktu Chronicles pointed me to a 2004 paper which evaluated different local replacements for hops. Sorghum-and-cola beer, anyone? Anyone?