Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
Elise Blackwell wrote a novel — Hunger — about the Siege of Leningrad and the people who starved at the Vavilov Research Institute rather than eat the seeds in their care. I haven’t read it, yet, although I have read interviews with the author. The Atlantic asked her to reflect on what is going on …
Best round up yet of what’s happening at Pavlovsk Experiment Station. Nature’s report on Pavlovsk is good too. Pavlovsk making waves in India too. S.Ananthanarayanan shares a write-up in The Statesman, Kolkata. More on that Chinese insect-eating fungus, or Chinese Love Flower. Yuck. A one-woman crusade for traditional African leafy vegetables. Right. Breadfruit trees in …
Continue reading “Nibbles: Pavlovsk, Pavlovsk, Pavlovsk, Fun fungus, ALVs, Breadfruit”
We’ve just learned that the court has decided in favour of the federal housing authority to permit the destruction of the Pavlovsk Experiment Station’s field collection of fruit diversity. Some hope remains, however. The N.I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR) says it will today lodge an appeal with the High Arbitration Court against …
Continue reading “Court decides against Pavlovsk but hope remains”
Fine memoir of Sir Bent Skovmand. Thanks Dag. Rice yields falling — and not just in experimental stations. The paper. In all the eulogies to the inventor of the Cheez Doodle, a note of truth. You could buy the Pavlovsk genebank site for just USD3.3 million, it says here. Is that even doable? Meanwhile, over …
Continue reading “Nibbles: Bent, Rice, Cheez, Pavlovsk, Millennium Seed Bank, Livestock, EUCARPIA”
The pack is well and truly on the scent now, with The Guardian in London and ABC in Australia weighing in, to say nothing of assorted ad-farms and feed scrapers. As they do so, strange claims are being made. That Pavlovsk is “the world’s first global seed bank,” for example. It isn’t. But that does …