A remarkable number of vegetables are actually produced by a handful of brassica species (called cruciferous vegetables), as covered by Greg over at Pie-ence. The wonderful thing about having so many different kinds of vegetables within a single, inter-fertile species is that the Brassicas are a constant source of “new” vegetables. Highlights of this post include: The CAL gene and its role in differentiating cauliflower from broccoli, reminiscing about broccoflower, and the “flower sprout” the newest breed of cruciferous vegetable.
Posts under ‘agriculture’
By The Numbers 12/19/09
Some statistics pulled together from various sources on wheat production, monsanto, lawsuits (not wheat related), and a random moon fact for no particular reason.
Support Sugar Beet Farmers
I don’t know why people prefer cane sugar to beet sugar (given they’re chemically identical), but the latest label I saw at the grocery store seems especially uncalled for when beet farmers have already had such a hard year.
More on the Good Guys (CGIAR)
CGIAR spending on research targeted at agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa (178 million dollars a year in 2003) provides 1.3 million people with an escape from extreme poverty (living one dollar a day or less) every year. Simple division would indicate the agricultural research of the CGIAR centers is saving human beings from the trap of extreme poverty at a cost of just under 137 dollars per person. Of course it isn’t that simple, there are both economies of scale** and, eventually, diminishing margins of return*** to consider, but it seems the work of the CGIAR centers in Africa are big enough to have achieved those economies of scale, and, given their calculations on the elasticity on poverty to investment in agriculture, Africa is a LONG way from having to worry about diminishing marginal returns on agricultural investment.
Given the elasticity of poverty reduction to agricultural research spending they calculate (-.22) the marginal cost* of reducing poverty by another person in Sub-Saharan Africa through investments in agricultural research is only $71. (i.e. spending one billion dollars more on agricultural research would save an additional 14 million people from poverty.) This doesn’t consider the additional postive effects of improving local agriculture (for example reducing the incidence of famine).
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Funding the Good Guys
Some changes are happening for CGAIR (the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research). If you don’t know about CGAIR, they’re definitely the good guys. But don’t take my word for it. How would you classify a non-profit organization that’s been working for close to 40 years to fight hunger and poverty by improving the agricultural [...]
Make Sure Your Voice is Heard
Another positive side effect of extending my stay in Iowa for another week (besides having the chance to work from a room with a view), was getting the chance to see the Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchak give a presentation on the same themes are their book “Tomorrow’s Table” here on campus (I’ve reviewed the book [...]
Edible Cottonseed
A professor at Texas A&M has found a way to use genetic engineering to make cotton seeds edible to humans and livestock. It’s a chance to get more benefit (an important new source of protein) from an existing resource (cotton plants). Unfortunately for all those who stand to benefit (especially the poor and malnurished in countries like India and China that lead the world in cotton production), while it’s possible to create edible cotton seeds using natural mutations, the only way to do it so the plants are heavily attacked by insects requires genetic engineering, so any benefits are a decade or more away.
China’s Approval of Bt Rice Confirmed
Read today’s story from Bloomberg. I’d discussed my own thoughts when it was a story based on anonymous sources last week. From the article: China produces 31 percent of the world’s rice and 20 percent of its corn, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show. …[China] uses 7 percent of the world’s arable land to feed [...]
What is it about purple plants?
I’m really at a loss here, but there’s just something way cooler about eating a purple colored plant over a more regular color. I’m not sure what it is (I’m not particularly partial to the color purple in other contexts). Consider the case of the cauliflower.