Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

November 26, 2008

Hot air on climate change?

Over before it began, in the sense that nothing actually happens until we report it here, the first meeting of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) on Biodiversity and Climate Change of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) took place in London from 17-21 November 2008. Did AHTEG consider either the impact of climate change of the diversity of crops and their wild relatives, or the need to crops and their wild relatives to mitigate the impacts of climate change?

Our source does not say, and I simply don’t know, and a quick glance at the list of meeting documents is no help. Someone, enlighten us, please.

November 25, 2008January 7, 2010

Nothing succeeds like success

So if you know “policies, programs, and investments in pro-poor agricultural development that have had a proven impact on hunger and food security,” the International Food Policy Research Institute would like to hear from you. To submit a nomination or nominations for “Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development,” please visit the IFPRI website

November 25, 2008November 27, 2008

Flood-tolerant rice hits primetime

You remember Robert’s entry for last year’s competition? Well, now check out this piece from MSNBC. And there’s a video too:

Always nice to see a genebank on the evening news.

November 25, 2008August 17, 2009

CWR and medicinal species in botanic gardens

Suzanne Sharrock of Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) has left a very interesting comment on our post a couple of day ago about the overlap between wild medicinal plants and wild crop relatives. Rather than letting it languish in obscurity, I’m reproducing it below:

At BGCI we have developed a list of around 3,000 plant species that are used for medicinal purposes. Of these, we know that 1,802 are in cultivation in botanic gardens and this list can be easily extracted from our PlantSearch database. Simply select “medicinal plants” and the list of medicinal plants that are in cultivation in botanic gardens is displayed. On this list, plants that are also CWR are marked (according to a list of CWR genera). If you download the list, it can be easily be manipulated in excel so you can extract those species (164 species) that are both medicinal plants and crop wild relatives and are in cultivation in botanic gardens.

If anyone is interested, we could provide the full list of plants that are on both our medicinal and CWR lists — not just those in cultivation in botanic gardens.

November 25, 2008

Slow Food on the move

The Slow Food movement is evolving, its founder says: “People who sniff a cheese and talk about how it has the most wonderful aroma of horse sweat. Think how incredibly boring we would be if we were still just a gastronomic society.”