Is there any good reason why we should not do this with agrobiodiversity, starting with crops and their wild relatives? In fact, is there any good reason why we have not done it already?
Effects of looting of Egyptian genebank on film
We’ve heard again from El-Sayed Mohamed El-Azazi, who is Executive Director of the Egyptian Deserts Gene Bank at the North Sinai Research Station. This time it’s a video of the effects of the recent looting, which he sent to our colleagues at Bioversity International. He confirms that the tissue culture and molecular labs have been destroyed, as well as part of the herbarium, and all computers stolen. But also that the seeds are still ok in the cold room, as you can see towards the end of the video. El-Sayed suggests in his commentary, which is for the most part a sad enumeration of equipment destroyed or stolen, that the looters were perhaps afraid to go into the cold room, and that’s why they left it unharmed.
Egyptian Desert Genebank from Crop Trust on Vimeo.
Featured: Tomato taxes
Don takes a trip down memory lane:
I recall a huge tomato model in a plastic box at UC Davis with a sign that went something like, “This is a model of the canning tomato, which was developed in this building. Tax revenues from it would support…” (something huge). I wonder if anyone remembers that tomato model.
Over to you, crowd; any wisdom on that?
Palms above Nile dam
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?