Posts

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Building the SDGs on dodgy premises

A couple of things on the SDGs today for you to wade through.

First, from FAO, there’s “FAO and the SDGs — Indicators: Measuring up to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” There’s a lot of sensible stuff in there on how to measure progress towards the SDG targets, goal by goal. I’m afraid, however, it lost me with the little sidebar I reproduce here. No, I didn’t know that. Mainly because that first bit is not true.

And then there’s an IIED Briefing on SDG2 in particular — that’s the hunger one. Surely they’ll stay away from dodgy numbers. Nope.

Genetic diversity reduces risk in agricultural systems and allows farmers to adapt to a changing environment, yet an estimated 75 per cent of crop diversity was lost between 1900 and 2000 with local varieties replaced by modern ones.

The reference? FAO’s training manual on Building on Gender, Agrobiodiversity and Local Knowledge. Where there is this:

But also this:

More than 90 percent of crop varieties have disappeared from farmers’ fields; half of the breeds of many domestic animals have been lost. In fisheries, all the world’s 17 main fishing grounds are now being fished at or above their sustainable limits, with many fish populations effectively becoming extinct. Loss of forest cover, coastal wetlands, other ‘wild’ uncultivated areas, and the destruction of the aquatic environment exacerbate the genetic erosion of agrobiodiversity.

Which is a bit confusing. The reference for that box? This. From 1999.

Oh well.

Posted on

Brainfood: Iron beans, Citrus evolution, Ethiopian co-ops, Farmer evaluation app, Exotic breeding, Cost of doing business, Plummy, Italian pears, Chinese cowpea, Breadfruit phylogeny, Seed collecting