Nibbles: US Farm Bill, Polish chicks, Young Kenyan farmers, Jowar redux, Handwriting, Erna Bennett, Ant mutualism, Horizontal plastid movement, Horizon scanning

by Jeremy Cherfas on February 15, 2012

Policy wonks start to worry about the next US Farm Bill and its effects on poor farmers elsewhere.
Poles start to worry about their endangered chicks.
The Youth in Agriculture gives agricultural biodiversity some love on St Valentine’s Day.
“Can jowar ever replace rice?” Question expecting the answer no? (Jowar is sorghum.)
Can anyone actually decipher what H.G. Wells wrote to FAO Director Lubin?
A Memorial Service will be held for Erna Bennett, in English, at 12.30 hrs. on Friday, 9th March at Santa Balbina Church, Viale Guido Baccelli, Rome. It’s near FAO. And no, there’s no link.
Ants help crop wild relative (among other things).
Plastids move between crop and wild relative.
Cambridge boffins look into crystal ball and see fully sequenced, N-fixing perennial cereals growing under sterile conditions. In deep ocean vents.

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: US Farm Bill, Polish chicks, Young Kenyan farmers, Jowar redux, Handwriting, Erna Bennett, Ant mutualism, Horizontal plastid movement, Horizon scanning

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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