You’ll have to take my word for it, unless you read Chinese, or can make head or tail out of the Google translation of the announcement on the Environmental Information E-News website, but it looks like a number of accessions of Setaria millet from the USDA collection have been “repatriated” to some Taiwanese hilltribe communities who had lost them over the years. Me, I’d have asked for stuff from other places too while I was at it, what with climate change and all, but anyway. There will apparently be more on the project on the website of the Department of Agronomy, National Taiwan University, but again you’ll need some language skills to get the full benefit. Prof. Warren H.J. Kuo is the man in charge. The word is that Taiwan’s Public Television Service will upload something in English to youtube very soon. Looking forward to that.
Greening fish and chips
What’s happening to the Great British Fish and Chips Meal? On a recent trip to Whitby on the Yorkshire coast I found that not only is the fish sustainable now.
But the whole thing is also GMO-free.
It didn’t use to be this way. What next? Organic heirloom potatoes? Acid-free paper to eat them from? Hardly bears thinking about.
Nibbles: Neanderthal, CWR, Bioinformatics, Svalbard, Old Armenian wine, Maple syrup, Plants databases, Bananas in trouble
- Neanderthals cooked and ate plants, but did not use toothbrushes.
- Andy Jarvis talks up a crop wild relatives storm.
- Towards an information infrastructure for the global genebank system. Maybe.
- Aussies send seeds to wrong Global Seed Vault.
- Oldest winery found in Armenia. Search still ongoing for oldest wino. Maybe in Lebanon?
- Oh, to be at the Bigleaf Maple Syrup Festival!
- The most important thing to happen in botany in, what, a couple of weeks? Ah, but the backlash is here.
- Colbert finally works out why his high school teacher put condoms on bananas. Here’s his informant.
Frost on vegetables
It’s a hard winter for British homegardeners…
Nibbles: Sudan, Quinoa, Book, Nutrition, Research
- Interesting take on Sudan’s vote; the South has the water, and yet, currently, the food insecurity. What next?
- Quinoa “isn’t lifting us out of poverty … But we are living better.”
- Agrobiodiversity Management for Food Security: A Critical Review. Book, due in April. h/t PAR.
- US seed industry concentration continues. Through an intellectual property lens.
- New IFPRI publication on agriculture, nutrition, health. “Agriculture is the only realistic way for most people to get the nutrition they need.” Can I get a “ramen”?
- USD32 million “to harness science to improve food security for millions of people in the developing world”. Get some while it lasts.