Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

September 19, 2012November 20, 2017

Precarious, moi?

In the United States, there is no general consciousness of the precarious state of global agriculture.

That’s from economist Tyler Cowen in the NY Times. One solution might be to start with the precarious state of US agriculture. David Lobell could help with that. But then, if you can increase food exports in the face of a giant drought, what does that say about the state of your agriculture? And to anyone who can synthesize all that, a big thank you.

September 18, 2012September 18, 2012

African universities get together on agriculture

The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), a consortium of 29 universities in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa, was established in 2004. The consortium originally operated as a program of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1992. RUFORUM has a mandate to oversee graduate training and networks of specialization in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) countries. Specifically, RUFORUM recognizes the important and largely unfulfilled role that universities play in contributing to the well-being of small-scale farmers and economic development of countries throughout the sub-Saharan Africa region. We strongly believe in Innovative and Responsive Research, High Performing Proactive Graduates, A Dynamic Platform for University Networking, Advocacy for Agricultural Higher Education and University Transformation for Relevance.

Of course, it has its full complement of social networking tools, including a blog. Searching around reveals at least one resource on agrobiodiversity. No doubt there’s more.

September 17, 2012September 17, 2012

Looking for agrobiodiversity on Top Ten lists

It is a diverting exercise to look for the intersection between the “Ten moments that changed history,” according to Andrew Marr’s new history of the world, and the Royal Society’s list of the “most significant invention[s] in the history of food and drink.” So I’ll leave it to you.

September 17, 2012November 28, 2017

Brainfood: South American threat map, Bee domestication, Rice origins, Legume diversity, Lima bean domestication

Analysis of threats to South American flora and its implications for conservation. Bottom line: Ecuadorian and Colombian Andes, southern Paraguay, the Guyana shield, southern Brazil, and Bolivia. But don’t let that divert your attention from the cool maps.
Management increases genetic diversity of honey bees via admixture. No genetic bottleneck there. And the same in more words, but not as many as the original paper.
Phylogeography of Asian wild rice, Oryza rufipogon: a genome-wide view. When in doubt, throw more markers at it. Two groups in O. rufipogon, only the Chinese/Indochinese one related to cultivated rice (indica). Japonica out on a limb. And the longer version.
Legume Diversity Patterns in West Central Africa: Influence of Species Biology on Distribution Models. Temperature variables are most important.
Multiple domestications of the Mesoamerican gene pool of lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus L.): evidence from chloroplast DNA sequences. Andean and Mesoamerican cultivated genepools confirmed, and two sub-genepools within the latter, one originating in western central Mexico and the other between Guatemala and Costa Rica. Will they mash up with the study in the first link? Some of the people involved are neighbours and friends.