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Tag: Mirabilis expansa

Posted on April 27, 2011April 27, 2011

Nibbles: Food production, Mauka

  • “A new initiative to help pastoralists and smallholder farmers cope with the twin pressures of drought and climate change.” Yes, but what is the initiative going to do?
  • Rhizowen gets mawkishly paternal about his mauka.

Fresh Nibbles

    • All of IFAD’s 5 investments that will help nourish the world need crop diversity. Prove me wrong.
    • And yet we still have to have articles on communicating the importance of genebanks.
    • Cosmos tries to do it by pointing to the science.
    • Smithsonian Magazine tries to do it by saying it’s tricky.
    • Genebanks try to do it by having nice new websites and talking to the media. Some of the biggest media.
    • CGIAR tries to do it by calling them an Accelerator.
    • IIED tries to do it by saying even botanic gardens can help farmers.
    • SwissAid thinks “[n]ational and international gene banks should give farmers’ organizations low-threshold access to their collections.” No argument there.
    • Maybe we should have songs about genebanks, like the Maxakali have about the Atlantic Forest.
    • Or we could just talk about food, food, glorious food.
    • Could also just fall back on the good old canonical lost-heirloom-apple-found story.
    • Or the canonical medical case for “ancient grains” story.
    • Though even there the heirlooms vs hybrids debate will rage I suppose…
    • But, whatever we do, let’s not take it to extremes, shall we?

    Published on May 16, 2025

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