Posts

Posted on

Herdwick sheep pass viability test

Embryos and sperm collected almost 10 years ago at the height of the Foot and Mouth epidemic in the UK have proved viable, according to a report from the UK’s Channel 4 News. Five ewes are carrying lambs fathered by rams lost to foot and mouth disease, and another three are surrogate mothers to embryos taken from sheep culled during the epidemic.

The threat to Herdwicks, one of several hardy heritage sheep breeds particularly valued for crossbred animals, prompted a rescue mission and resulted in the formation of The Sheep Trust. The report points out that in the end the precautions weren’t necessary — only about a third of the Herdwick flock was culled — but that it was impossible to know that in advance.

The Sheep Trust has taken on 12 heritage breeds, and calculates that 10 of those are geographically very concentrated, with 95% of the animals within 65 km of the centre of the breed’s distribution. This, the Trust warns, makes them vulnerable to future outbreaks of disease.

Posted on

Food on a pedestal

tomato statue in Davis, California, USA Inspired by Jeremy’s posts on corn statues and tomato experiments in Davis, California, I offer you the “Portrait of a plump tomato”, by Gerald Heffernon. It stands in front of a Davis shop that sells heirloom tomatoes and other agricultural biodiversity (20 rice varieties!).

Tilapia statue in San Pablo, Philippines I wonder if the tomato is celebrated here for the many (industrial use) tomato fields in the Davis area. Gerald Heffernon is somewhat of a fruit specialist: he also made apricot, pear, plum and cherry statues, but food statues are rare in the USA and elsewhere.

Pineapple statue in Calauan, Laguna, Philippines As far as I know, and do correct me if I am wrong, the Philippines is the only country where food gets due respect, and the statues that come with that.

I believe the highest density to be in a small area, roughly forming a triangle with 10 km edges, in Laguna province. San Pablo — with its many lakes — has a big tilapia. Victoria, known for its sweet pinya, a fierce pineapple.

Duck statue in Bay, Laguna, PhillipinesLaguna de Bay, the place to eat ducklings-in-the-egg known as balut (not for the faint of heart) has duck statues (here is another good one).

There are plenty of (golden and other) cow statues, in Asian temples, and elsewhere. Do you know of other statues that honor the the organisms that feed us?

Posted on

A great quiz, not so well done

Questionable Mosquito I was thrilled to see a Tweet from Farming First asking How much do you know about agriculture, nutrition and health? Lots, and I love online quizzes and the opportunity to show off. Who doesn’t? So I hurried on over, to discover a quiz from IFPRI, tied to the meeting on Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition & Health, which opens tomorrow in New Delhi. 1 It is really nice, with a good mix of questions and types of answers. I only really carped at one, pictured over there. Perhaps you can guess why. Anyway, I had a good time answering all the questions, definitely stumped for a few. Discovered I had to give them all sorts of demographic information; well, there’s no free lunch. So now can I have my results and the obligatory share this with all your friends or we’ll hate you forever link? No such luck. Instead I got sent to the answers, 2 and instructions to give myself one point for every right answer and zero for wrong answers. But not my own answers, right or wrong. I couldn’t precisely remember them either, and we all know how easy it is to misremember in one’s favour. I think I got five wrong, four if we can have an argument about the way the question was worded. I did get the mosquito question right, because I knew what they meant, even if they didn’t.

Bottom line: It’s a good quiz, worth spending a few minutes on.

Posted on

Featured: Egyptian genebank

More news has come in from the Desert Research Center in Egypt, which is spread over several sites. We knew the genebank in North Sinai had been looted, while the national genebank, near Giza, seemed to be safe. Now we learn that a site at Matrya, on the outskirts of Cairo, has been robbed, with 300-400 computers and other equipment loaded into private cars between 1 and 5 in the morning. At least, that’s what I get from the message, which seems to have been through a combination of machine and human translation. Having but two words of Arabic, I can’t complain. However, if anyone out there more fluent than me would like to get in contact and prepare a more readable account, we’ll be happy to host it. Anonymously if need be.

Posted on

How much do world food prices influence African market prices?

Everybody’s talking about the current food price crisis; what it means, what’s causing it; whether it is an opportunity to ask for increased funding. With impeccable timing, IFPRI has released a report examining the extent to which market prices in sub-Saharan Africa reflect changes in global prices. I haven’t read it, and here are IFPRI’s take-home messages:

  • Staple food prices in these countries rose 63 percent between mid-2007 and mid-2008, about three-quarters of the proportional increase in world prices.
  • Statistical analysis over 5 to 10 years indicates a long-term relationship with world prices in only 13 of the 62 African food prices examined. African rice prices are more closely linked to world markets than are maize prices.
  • The global food crisis was unusual in influencing African food prices, probably because of the size of the increase and the fact that it coincided with oil price increases. Policy responses and local factors exacerbated the effect in some cases.

IFPRI does then go on to offer some suggestions.