Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
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…
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?
As usual, it never rains but it pours. Within a few minutes yesterday I was pointed by different sources towards the Forest Map of Europe, Tree species maps for European forests, the Condition of Forests in Europe report, a review of Dynamic Conservation of Forest Genetic Resources in 33 European Countries, and a paper on the Uses of tree saps in northern and eastern parts of Europe. Thinking that there might be something in the air, I did a quick search of my RSS feed, and found another very recent review, Translating conservation genetics into management: Pan-European minimum requirements for dynamic conservation units of forest tree genetic diversity. What’s got into the European forest conservation community? Has ash dieback got them all running scared? And is someone going to put all European forest-related maps together somewhere (eg, Eye on Earth)?
kctomato — obviously a made-up name — takes a philosophical approach to the problem of plant breeding and intellectual property rights:
One man sees bricks and builds walls for borders and prisons, another sees bricks and builds walls for schools and hospitals.
Limiting genes and thus diversity through utility patents in particular may be keeping some from doing more than what another be holding onto.
But does that fix the problem?
Oh dear, here’s another agrobiodiversity documentation project that we’ve missed. Over the past few years NordGen has been supporting the Norwegian Genetic Resource Centre in describing apple varieties. That much I can make out in the Google translation of the original Norwegian web page describing the project. But not much more than that. For some reason, the translation is much worse than is usually the case. Maybe it’s the technical language. Anyway, I don’t think there are any data online yet, but when they are, they may or may not be integrated into the database of Danish apple varieties that NordGen manages, complete with handy key. Which is also in English.