- That old perennial perennial grains featured in a new online magazine.
- @gr0b10d1v3r$1ty: Password to a More Secure Agriculture. See what Fabrice did there?
- Five games that will revolutionise your understanding of agricultural economics. No, really. We particularly like Bohnanza.
- The botanist in the kitchen looks at leeks; be ready for St David’s Day 2014.
- Most Ancient Romans Ate Like Animals. Prize for most obnoxious headline about NUS?
- Looking forward to BBC R4 on insectivory next week.
- Bangladesh encouraging agricultural diversification.
- A plague of locusts, just in time for Passover.
- Daily Kos does a big number on women in agriculture. Worth a bookmark.
- And Kew does a number on castor oil seeds. Breaking Bad fans will want to read it.
- We haven’t linked to a genome study for ages, so let’s hear it for bamboo.
- One of a whole lot of presentations from the recent Bio-innovate conference in Ethiopia, courtesy of ILRI.
The first two of these articles – on perennial grains and anti-monoculturalism – are simply wrong. If perennials are `more in harmony with nature’, then why are there annuals at all? Horses for courses: annuals do better than perennials under certain ecological conditions – these conditions is what annual crop production copies. And what about monocultures? Again, these persist and thrive in nature under certain ecological conditions – often marginal in some way – these conditions are what arable cropping imitates. It is mindless to ignore these natural ecologies. We need to know how they work, rather than dismiss them from some kind of ecological prejudice based on some kind of now-discredited Clementsian view of climax vegetation. No more Nibbles tonight – it’s bedtime.