Jaremy’s post reminded me that I’d come across this photo on Flickr some time back, and made a mental note that it might come in useful one day.
Egypt and agriculture
There are many things one could say about the changes in Egypt, and it seems that someone, somewhere, is saying each of them. Rather than add to the noise, I want to point to something rather good I saw at the Ancient Foods blog: a a hymn to the Ancient Egyptian Goddess of the Harvest Renenutet.
I will make the Nile swell for you,
without there being a year of lack and exhaustion in the whole land,
so the plants will flourish, bending under their fruit.
The land of Egypt is beginning to stir again,
the shores are shining wonderfully,
and wealth and well-being dwell with them,
as it had been before.
There’s just one thing that puzzles me about this rather fine invocation, and its name is Aswan. Has it been an overall benefit, now that the Nile no longer swells as once it did?
Pavlovsk mainstay passes away
Leonid Burmistrov, Leading Scientist of the Fruit and Berry Crop Genetic Resources Department of the N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry (VIR) in St Petersburg, has died. From the recent announcement on the VIR website:
Leonid Burmistrov has made a significant contribution to the preservation of the threatened fruit and berry crop collections located at the Pavlovsk Experiment station of VIR. He gave 60 interviews to the Russian and foreign mass media. Thanks to his efforts, the collection continues to exist.
Evaluating maize for nutritional quality
You think they’re discussing this sort of thing at the “Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health” conference? You think they’re also discussing dietary diversity?
Agriculture being leveraged in Delhi
The IFPRI 2020 Conference on “Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health,” is off and running in New Delhi, India. If you can’t be there in person, at least there’s a Twitter feed. Impressions from participants always welcome.
LATER: There’s a blog too, of course.