Nibbles: Feeding the world edition

by Luigi Guarino on February 23, 2012

BBC says we can feed the world through technology. And why not. The Times of India, meanwhile, didn’t get the memo.
Bill Gates at the IFAD Governing Council will probably say the same thing today. And put his money where his mouth is.
CIMMYT Director General said the same recently at an Economist conference. Funny how genebanks are rarely among the saviour technologies being touted.
It’s all about the scaling up, isn’t it?
Tell that to the Lake Chad fisherfolk who are now turning to farming.
And, in another universe, sushi seeks protection.
Buffel vs Rhodes in the Arabian peninsula.

Fresh Nibbles: May 18, 2012 : <- click to comment

Ancient olives not that old after all. But still attractive.
Giving up tobacco – in favor of purple sweet potatoes?
Kew is now as much about cooking as growing. Visit the 18th century kitchens.
Linking small farmers to markets, video from a conference.
The International Treaty’s SMTA made easy. Well, kinda. It would have been even easier if they had linked to the site. Good thing there’s us, eh?

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Mark Nesbitt knows who the Director of Agriculture is Tanzania was in 1934:

The sorghum collection – all 956 accessions – was acquired by J.D. Snowden while working on his 1936 book (still in print!) “Cultivated Races of Sorghum”. It’s a perfect example of a collection that 20 years ago would have seemed useless (old seeds, mostly dead) but thanks to new techniques (DNA analysis) suddenly looks very interesting as a record of landrace distribution before the Green Revolution.

So, any gene jockeys out there interested in extracting DNA from old seeds? Just for information, there are 1058 sorghum accessions from Tanzania in Genesys. How much can it cost to run a bunch of microsatellites on 2,000 samples?

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Nibbles: Feeding the world edition

Fresh Nibbles: May 18, 2012 : <- click to comment

Nibbles Archive: All that condensed goodness.

And easy access to the Brainfood Archive.

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