Yes, we have many solutions
IITA has a pretty nice video out about controlling Banana Xanthomonas Wilt via genetic modification.
Now, don’t jump to any conclusions, I have nothing against genetic modification of banana. In fact, if you’re going to use genetic modification on anything, bananas should be right up there. No chance of that pesky transgene escaping into the wild, for a start. Although I would like to know how they’re planning to engineer resistance into the dozens of varieties that are important in East Africa. Wait, you mean they’re not going to do that? Just a few, eh?
Well, anyway. My main point is that the video gives no hint at all that, as far as BXW control is concerned at any rate, there are other, perfectly viable, options. And IITA knows this, because it has been involved in the development of a pretty effective, multi-faceted, low-cost, integrated, sustainable strategy for control. One that doesn’t involve the threat of reducing the diversity of the crop.
Of course, it would help if there were similarly nice videos about that. There are factsheets galore, true. Lots of factsheets. But videos? Well, maybe you can get them to work. And anyway they don’t really seem to be aimed at the general audience so clearly targeted by IITA’s vid. How can we make the case that there are occasionally more appropriate, sustainable solutions than GMOs when we can’t even win the battle of the videos?
If it isn’t gluten, maybe its dairy?
A propos of Luigi’s earlier decision to plumb Kim Kardashian’s depths, my own sources led me this morning to a “comedy” video.
It dates from 2009, at least, even longer ago than La Kardashian’s ringing endorsement.
Gluten free is the way to be. Or not to be.
Gluten free is the way to be….OH Hiiiiiiiiiiii http://t.co/y4LOtk1Z
— Kim Kardashian (@KimKardashian) May 4, 2012
No doubt fearing the repercussions of this and other celebrity endorsements of a wheat-free diet, 1 the National Wheat Improvement Committee has come out with a myth-busting denunciation of Dr William Davis’ monumental Wheat Belly. I wonder if Kim has seen it. Wait, let me tweet it to her…
What’s gin got to do with the price of corn?
Just caught up with a fascinating NPR interview with Richard Barnett, author of The Book of Gin. What struck me particularly was a section on the origins of the gin boom in England. Barnett tied it to The Glorious Revolution, and William of Orange coming to the throne. William needed to keep the land-owning aristos sweet. One way to do that was to keep the price of grain high, and one way to do that was to deregulate distilling. That, as Barnett explained, opened up a new market for grain, which kept grain prices high, even as it made gin cheaper and cheaper.
So the aristos were presumably happy enough to keep supporting King Billy, and there NPR left it to wander down Gin Lane and beyond.
But the story sounds an awful lot like the contemporary story of mandated maize biofuel. That too opens up a new market that keeps prices high, and, some say, is keeping food prices high too.
So here’s my question: did the demand for grain for distilling have any impact on food prices in the 18th century?