- Sorry about the light blogging lately. I’m on leave and Jeremy is in the manure. Thankfully Robert has been picking up the slack lately, apparently because he has nothing better to do. Anyway, here’s a juicy roundup of Nibbles covering the past week and more. Starting with this stunner: Svalbard needs an adviser!
- Breeding better barley: The video. No videos, however, on breeding Africa’s orphan crops. Yet.
- Some of those are agroforestry species. Which is not confined to Africa, of course. But pomegranate is not included, alas for the Afghans. Nor the hazlenut, alas for the Australians, who will however admittedly probably sequence the thing themselves.)
- DivSeek does have a video, though.
- Even raspberry breeding has a video. But if this strawberry hack works for other plants, breeders might not be needed at all :)
- Orange-fleshed sweet potato folks meet in Ghana for annual jamboree.
- An insurance policy for agriculture? Yes, you guessed it.
- Recovering the NM chile. Hot stuff from a cold place. Yes, you guessed it. Again. (BTW, not only important in New Mexico.
- How to make a 17th century sallat. You heard me.
- CIAT on getting ahead of dietary trends. No, not from the 17th century. This being the current situation, however. And more specifically for dietary diversity among women. Yes, it’s all about diversification. Including in homegardens. Which were the great love of the great, late Olga Linares.
- The benefits would be so great to get nutrition right. And yet we haven’t. And without Olga it’s not going to be any easier. Maybe we could start by curing Indians of their pizza habit.
- The largest seed exchange in the world. It says here. There I was thinking it was the CGIAR genebanks.
- Rewilding Europe. Kinda sorta.
- The Dutch have new policies on conserving livestock genetic resources. At least yaks are not an issue.
- Meanwhile, the UK biodiversity indicators include one on crop genetic diversity.
- Maybe all it needs is better marketing, like these millets?
- Or perhaps a data portal, like wheat’s.
- Which may soon be out of date for the Punjab. Or should be, anyway, according to this IFPRI study. And also for the US, according to this maverick breeder getting a writeup in the NY Times.
- Be that as it may, help is on the way for wheat, in the form of its wild relatives. According to some people who should know.
- Interactive global deforestation map. Because we can.
- Black chicken? And why not? Not Icelandic, though, I’m willing to bet. Chickens? “…it was the forced opening of China by the West in the 1840s that made the modern [chicken] possible.” Not so the turkey, though.
- Ancient horse breeders liked spots. And then they didn’t. And then they did…
- Disease resistant Napier grass in Kenya. Must ask the mother-in-law whether she has some.
- Oh dear, Italian olives are in trouble. Again. Ah, yes, the olive, symbol of peace.
- Penang Botanic Gardens has a big birthday.
- Hope that keeps you going for a while…
CIAT on getting ahead of dietary trends.
This is a `Curate’s egg’ of a policy paper – good in parts. Three problems: 1) it ignores the sound agro-ecology of crop introduction as a major driver of changing diets; 2) it persists in calling soybean an oil crop (20 oil, 40% vegetable protein – highly valuable to lower use of meat); 3) it has a go at oil palm – surely the highest potential, once neglected, introduced, sustainable, biofuel crop ever. This is a kick in the teeth for CIAT host-country Colombia, where palm oil production could (and perhaps should) increase ten-fold over the next two decades.