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In print
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Order Indigo here and save 20% |
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Indigo
By Jenny Balfour-Paul
British Museum Press, 46 Bloomsbury St., London WC1B 3QQ
ISBN 0 7141 1776 5 hardback £29.95
Hear Jenny Balfour-Paul
explain the beauty of Indigo (If the server is busy please try again later)
The blue dye indigo has been ther world's most valued dyestuff for almost five millennia. Produced from plants by a process that looks like magic, indigo has a unique chemistry that renders it compatible with every type of natural fibre. In today's multi-coloured world, it is hard to imagine the incredible impact that indigo must have had on the many civilisations that chanced upon it.
"Indican", which is the chemical source of the dye, is present in the leaves of all the indigo-bearing plants of which there are some 500 species known (although only a handful are useful commercially). Each species has its own distinctive characteristics and production methods but the chemical make-up of the actual dyestuff is common to all. Whether the dye has been derived from woad from northern Europe, from an indigofera from India, Africa or Central America, from Polygonum tinctorium from a Japanese island, or from one of the other genera grown by villagers in the Far East or West Africa, the resulting blue is indistinguishable, even to the specialist.
Superbly illustrated and designed, this scholarly yet readable book traces the history of growing, processing and trading indigo. With renewed interest in natural dyes, could indigo regain some of the ground lost to synthetic dyes and provide a source of livelihood for farmers in both temperate and tropical countries?
The author, Jenny Balfour-Paul, can be heard by readers with access to RealAudio.
Smallholder cash crop production under market liberalisation - A new institutional economics perspective
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Ed. A.Dorward, J.Kydd and C. Poulton of Wye College, University of London
published by CAB International, Wallingford, Oxon., OX10 8DE, UK
Email: orders@cabi.org
1998, 288 pp., ISBN 085199 277 3 (Hb) £40.00/$75.00
Understanding some of the problems faced by smallholder farmers in the Third World is the
subject of this award-winning book by researchers at Wye College. The book is based on extensive
research in Ghana, Pakistan and Tanzania which has reviewed the effects of market liberalisation on
service provision to smallholder farmers. Using case studies, the book investigates the
difficulties facing the private sector in supplying inputs and credit and the conditions required
for sustainable private sector investment to the benefit of rural people. The book was described by
judges of the John Abbot Award as one that "has a great deal to contribute to the current
policy debate related to the role of Government in development."
(The John Abbott Award is awarded every two years for the best written promotion of effective
agricultural and food marketing in developing countries.)
Departmental Report 1999 
This book contains 14 recipes
specifically developed to get more nutrients, particularly iron, out of an already outstanding
food: mungbean. The recipes have been developed by the authors of the book as part of a nutrition
project at AVRDC which was funded by USAID. The recipes have been tested on Indian school children
and young women for their acceptability and their ability to improve the iron levels of these test
groups. (see 98-2 
Soil degradation is unlikely to
threaten global food supply by 2020, concludes the author of this paper although world commodity
prices and malnutrition may rise. But, the effects of soil degradation on food consumption by the
rural poor, agricultural markets, agricultural income, and in some cases, national wealth will be
significant. Many of the sub-regions where degradation is evident (particularly Sub-Saharan Africa
and South Asia) have no real alternative livelihood options, sources of food supply, or
nonagricultural development. The paper is organized into five chapters which include existing
evidence for soil degradation and the likely future trends in land use and management. The final
chapter suggests priorities for policy action and research to reduce the threats posed by further
degradation of vulnerable soils.
