Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
Department of Very Cool: Luigi’s presentation on The role of ex situ crop diversity conservation in adaptation to climate change was featured on the home page of SlideShare today.
Course, it might be gone by tomorrow, so you’ll just have to trust me on this. At this very moment 65 people have seen it. Go, watch, boost his figures. Congratulations to Luigi.
Marty Sachs and Candy Gardner talk about maize genetic resources, sensu very latu. Thanks, Biofortified and Elizabeth.
Without biodiversity there will be no agriculture.
Well, that got my attention. Because no possibility of breeding new crop varieties, right. Biodiversity as in crop wild relatives, for example. No crop wild relatives, no landraces: no more agriculture. Right? Well, not quite.
Farming practices should not jeopardize species survival: improving farmland diversity and reducing the usage of pesticides and fertiliser are key efforts to saving biodiversity. Organic agriculture practices can serve as an example in many areas.
Which is all true, of course. And IUCN does have its constituency. I understand that. But we really do need to do something about this yawning chasm between the two communities.
FAO’s online Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum) has just concluded its discussion on “Strengthening Food Security by Empowering Farmers to Contribute to Seed Biodiversity.” A proceedings and summary are available. There were about a dozen contributions. All very well informed, but nothing that was said struck me as particularly novel, including what I contributed. But I’m just be a jaded old curmudgeon. See what you think.
Fauna and Flora International and its partner in Kyrgystan, the Kyrgyzstan Ecological Public Foundation (TAZA), are trying to take the pressure off the country’s rich fruit and nut forests by introducing alternative energy sources.
TAZA is helping to trial solar energy in fruit drying, stoves, and water heaters in several villages. The reaction from local people is already positive, though the scheme is in its early stages.
There must be a lot of places around the world where something similar has been tried. Any meta-analyses of such interventions?