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Agricultural experience is valuable

Women who have worked in the fields are more valuable than women who have worked as housemaids. Brendan Koerner reports on a study of bride prices in Tanzania which shows that “child labor in agricultural activities is significantly associated with better outcomes in terms of family wealth”. Koerner goes on to ask whether “if bride prices were abolished, would families be less inclined to put their daughters to work in the fields? That would seem to be a long-term good for a nation looking to decrease its reliance on farming.”

My question: why would Tanzania want to decrease its reliance on farming? Wouldn’t it actually like to improve its farming?

Answers on a postcard (whatever that is) please.

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UK public asked to forget election, map cherries instead

In another example of “citizen science” the Natural History Museum in the UK is enlisting the help of the public in a survey of cherry trees.

The results will produce a map of cherry tree locations and their flowering and fruiting timings. It will give scientists a better insight into the cherry tree population and help them find out how climate change may be affecting the flowering and fruiting times.

You can read all about it on the NHM’s website, and follow progress on a handy map.

As I’ve probably said here before, I think this sort of approach could work really well with heirloom varieties. But I imagine not as many people will be interested in oats as in cherries.

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Fairtrade quinoa vodka hits the stores

Oliver Morton alerts me on Twitter to the existence of a fairtrade quinoa vodka. The “first fairtrade certified vodka in the world,” no less. The quinoa comes from Bolivia, but the vodka is made in France as a joint venture.

The quinoa used by FAIR Vodka is cultivated by over 1,200 small producers in the Bolivian Altiplano and gathered within the Anapqui cooperative, the main association of farming producers in the country. With a strong focus on sustainability, FAIR is keen to build long-term relationships with their partnered cooperatives along with their communities in order to ensure their continued development.

A quick look around the intertubes did not reveal much in the way of other alcoholic beverages made from quinoa, apart from a reference to its use in making a type of chicha in Ecuador. Anyone know more?

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An Atlas of Global Conservation goes (partially) online

The Nature Conservancy is publishing an Atlas of Global Conservation . 1 Some of the maps are online, though not the one below, which I got from a slideshow over at the Washington Post accompanying an article on the atlas.

Why not, though? Surely, if someone is really going to buy the hardcopy version, they are not going to be put off by the fact that all the maps are on the internet. I left a comment to that effect on the Conservancy’s Facebook post announcing the atlas, and they very kindly got back to me saying that more maps will indeed eventually be made available online.

What’s that you say? Any agriculture? A map of centres of crop diversity to go with the above? The list of data sources is not encouraging. But I could be wrong. I’ll keep you posted.