Why can't @DeccanChronicle and @cnni get the right photo of crops? Originals: https://t.co/Rnk2PueDwi and https://t.co/yu3kDLhYqB pic.twitter.com/npPx0zVEXN
— AgroBioDiverse (@AgroBioDiverse) May 30, 2017
Crop wild relatives on Costing the Earth on the BBC
Botanist James Wong investigates the links between global warming and the rate at which crops are able to adapt and evolve to rapidly changing conditions.
That includes how crop wild relatives can help.
The money quote:
The first rule of intelligent tinkering is you don’t throw away any of the parts just because you’re not sure what they’re for.
Lathyrism and stunting
In a comment on a recent post on nutrition in India, Dirk Enneking, who should know, suggests that:
In the Central Provinces [of India] there seems to be a close overlap between severe stunting in children and historical neurolathyrism epidemics.
His reference for the latter is a 1927 publication with some pleasantly old-fashioned maps. He may well be onto something. I was able to superimpose the stunting map from the previous post and an image of the 1927 map on the distribution of lathyrism. ((In PowerPoint, if you must know. Don’t judge me.)) This is it:
It’s not great, I know: I haven’t had the time (and don’t have the skills anyway) for the full-blown GIS treatment. But it does seem to be the case that historical areas of lathyrism (darker patches) are confined to areas where stunting is still prevalent (red).
Over to the experts for an explanation.
Complementarity between informal and formal seed systems
The webinar. Today. Register quick.
Complementarity between the informal and formal seed systems will be approached in a holistic way through this webinar. Not only do the conservation and innovation systems need to integrate the formal and informal seed systems to benefit from one another’s capacity and value added, but new policies and legal measures need to be formulated to ensure the recognition and implementation of the rights of farmers.
Featured: Erosion meme
Cary also thinks we should do something about that 75% thing:
FAO has long needed to correct the record. Yes, it is like something generated from a game of “Chinese Whispers” as mentioned in one of your earlier posts. But hey, maybe it’s become a meme by now! What would Richard Dawkins have to say? I’m guessing he would wish you good luck in reeling this back toward reality, whatever that is.
Best meme gets a prize.
