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Multidisciplinary taro book on the way

The National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka has just announced the publication of what promises to be a fascinating book on taro:

M. Spriggs, D. Addison and P. J. Matthews (eds) (2012) Irrigated Taro (Colocasia esculenta) in the Indo-Pacific: Biological, Social and Historical Perspectives (Senri Ethnological Studies 78). Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology. 363 pp., with index.

According to one of the authors, “[t]his map from the preface shows main geographical coverage (areas 1 – 10) of the volume (there is also some extension to China and mainland SE Asia).”

All the chapters will soon be available on the Museum’s website, so keep a lookout.

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Two things about agricultural biodiversity

If the point of a good blog post is to get you thinking, Alan Cann’s over at the Annals of Botany blog certainly worked on me. What are the two things you need to know about a subject? I’ve been pondering that since 18 March, when Alan’s post appeared. I had my answer almost immediately, but I haven’t been able to refine it as I thought I might.

A bit of background. Alan was riffing on an article in The Guardian, which in turn was building on a site kept (and now more or less abandoned) by economist turned screenwriter Glen Whitman. The basic idea is that

For every subject, there are only two things you need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important.

So what are my two things?

  1. All intrinsic improvements in agriculture are founded on existing agricultural biodiversity.
  2. Improvements in agriculture intrinsically destroy existing agricultural biodiversity.

But I’m sure you can do better …

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Brainfood: Medicinal plants, Einkorn diversity, Chestnut diversity, Leeks etc, Phylogenetic diversity

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Mufhoho for the masses, finger millet for the rest of us

The Gaia Foundation recently featured a slideshow about the work of the Mupo Foundation. The slideshow is all about finger millet (Eleusine coracana) in Venda, a region of South Africa. Mupo says it:

[S]trengthens local communities in ecological governance by reviving indigenous seed, facilitating and encouraging intergenerational learning, and rebuilding confidence in the value of indigenous knowledge systems.

Cleaning seed, from The Mupo Foundation

That kind of language probably wows donors; I hope so. What it comes down to, though, is helping young people to learn from those who have not yet forgotten about crops that are better for them and their environment. Finger millet certainly fits the bill. The Mupo Foundation is gathering, storing and sharing finger millet diversity, promoting its nutritional value, and preserving rituals and traditions that depend on millet. It would be nice to think that they could be funded under a new call for proposals for research on Improving rural livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa: Sustainable and climate-smart intensification of agricultural production. Maybe even trialling some of the 5957 varieties that ICRISAT says it has in its genebank, to see whether any can deliver additional benefits under changing climate regimes.