- Colony collapse disorder. It’s still complicated.
- The Botanist in the Kitchen is at it again, with an in-depth treatment of okra, slime and chocolate.
- But seriously, why don’t Anglo-Saxons eat equids? It’s all down to religion.
- Nigeria embraces UNCTAD report that warns against monoculture.
- An interactive map of crop wild relatives. If it showed barley too, I know someone who would be in heaven.
- As so often in these matter, Kew comes to the rescue.
- A history of the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. My kind of dietary diversity.
The interactive map of crop wild relatives does, indeed, show barley… search under crop gene pool for barley for a richness overview, or in cwr taxon by scientific name of the cwr of interest…
http://www.cwrdiversity.org/distribution-map/
This UNCTAD report is a disgrace. It comes over as a promotion of the organic agriculture industry written by a bunch of loonies (and GRAIN). One report on it has: “Farming in rich and poor nations alike should shift from monoculture towards greater varieties of crops”. This is a total misunderstanding of `monoculture’. It is perfectly possible to have `greater varieties of crops’ – whatever that means – and to have monocultures. The most important food production system of all – irrigated rice, is almost always `monoculture’ and can be rotated into all kinds of complicated crops. Who is paying for this vast propaganda campaign against food production in developing countries? And who is writing it – lots of people with desk jobs sitting in developed, crop-exporting countries? How can UN organizations repeatedly be infiltrated by advice that is directly against the interests of developing countries and their excellent farmers.
I see that Carlos Perez de Castillo, Chair of the CGIAR Consortium, has chosen to write the Foreword. I guess this is his endorsement of the report. I know others who don’t think the same – far from it.
I also note in the report that there is hardly a single peer-reviewed article cited. It’s all opinion backed up by opinion. As David Wood says, it’s a disgrace.