- Edible Memory for free, for a month. Heirloom tomatoes and more.
- Speaking of heirloom tomatoes… Tomatomania! The podcast. And the website.
- The ritual autumn BBC story on heirloom apples. Anyone for applemania?
- Would you settle for pearmania? Perrymania actually.
- Mania or no, crops have taken a hit this year.
- The truth behind some buzzwords in food systems discourse from IPES-Food. Spoiler alert: agroecologymania.
- Some cool breadfruit etc. jobs going in Hawaii at the National Tropical Botanical Garden.
- Kent Nnadozie has a pretty cool job at the Plant Treaty, here’s an interview with him on the occasion of World Food Day.
Agroecologymania indeed. This IPES report is a manic attack on agricultural research for develeopment from foundation-funded activists in developed countries. Their view of the ecology of biodiversity (such as at is) is the opposite of reality. All the rest is socio-economic guff that the CGIAR and natonal programmes have been doing far better for decades. The real ecology started with the domestication of naturally monodominant grasses growing under stress of fire and/or flood, subsequently tillage and monoculture in traditional (rice!) and modern farming. The opposite of biodiversification (although a lot of animal biodiversity can be associated with monodominant vegetation). It is easy to predict that `agroecology’ as promoted by this lot will go pear-shaped.