- Big grant for TC Dublin to create DNA matrix of ancient livestock, will identify parchments too.
- Kew unites Augustine Henry’s letters with the objects and specimens he collected; agrobiodiversity included.
How they make cheese
This Sunday, an estimated 58 percent of Americans will order pizza for Super Bowl parties around the country. To celebrate Game Day classics like pizza, cheese dips and nachos, we went to Wisconsin — the American dairyland that produces 35 percent of the country’s cheese — to find out the chemistry behind cheesemaking.
The “we” in this case is the American Chemical Society, and having been to the University of Wisconsin and sampled the delights of the Babcock Hall experimental ice-cream shop, I was anxious to see the ACS video. Alas, it is as dull as factory cheese. And in light of that “58% will order pizza” statistic, I wish instead the ACS — or the University of Wisconsin-Madison — had investigated the whole business of analog, imitation substitute cheese which, and I’m guessing here, probably feature prominently, and possibly exclusively, on 98.2% of the pizzas those 58% of Americans are going to order.
Nibbles: Neolithic foods, Diplomacy, San, Bango, Urban Navy beas, Veg Celebs, Seed swaps
- What wild foods did Neolithic farmers eat? Archaeobotanists want to know. So do we.
- British Foreign Office promotes economics of biodiversity and ecosystems in SE Asia. Nothing to say on agrobiodiversity.
- Maybe they could learn how to use Nature to profit from the San in Namibia?
- You say mango, I say bango, lets call the whole thing off.
- Is this now the biggest urban farm in the world?
- Silly veg stuff on Twitter. My favorite so far is Okra Winfrey.
- Seedy Sunday, approaching fast in the UK, cries out for some silliness.
Nibbles: Educashun, Landscapes, Botany, AnGR, Tourism, Ham museum, Native American seeds, Ancient Egyptian grain storage, Ancient beer
- Want to teach about agrobiodiversity? Help is at hand.
- Want to learn about agrobiodiversity? Stay here.
- Want to know what’s going on in biodiversity conservation at Cambridge? Here’s how. Tell us if agriculture gets a look-in. If it doesn’t, come back here. But I bet there’ll be something about landscapes.
- What is a landscape? “The answer … differs tremendously depending on the respondent,” it says here. Wow, those Cambridge boffins will be so shocked.
- Want to know about the plants in that landscape whose definition is so much in the hands of respondents? Most were discovered by just a few botanical superstars. But how many women?
- And if that landscape is Turkish and there are (is?) livestock in it, this is what you’ll see.
- Want to tour the world’s top evolution sites? Here’s the first stop. Now, how about crop evolution (and domestication, natch) sites. Like some livestock- and crop-wild-relative-discovered-by-a-botanical-superstar-filled Turkish landscape, perhaps.
- Or what about sites connected with food production and marketing more generally, for that matter. No, that list would be too long. Interesting, but too long. Would need to prioritize ruthlessly.
- One thing for certain, though, it should include a couple of community genebanks.
- Where it is not inconceivable that seeds would be protected following age-old practices. Which may or may not be taught in fancy courses.
- Oh, and beer.
A valuable round up on watchamacallits (NUS, orphan crops, development opportunity crops etc etc)
On the Agricultures website our friends Stefano Padulosi and Paul Bordoni have just published a very valuable round-up on what they call “underutilized species”. ((Facebookers can contribute to the discussion of what to call those things here.)) Valuable especially because it returns to the topic after six more years of research in the field, casting a historical eye over what worked and pointing out that these species — whatever you call them — can offer poor people a diversity of options to improve their lives, provided projects accept that it is complex and needs to be thorough.
The end-result … was very positive … and further confirmed that it is indeed possible to turn underutilized species into an effective instrument of development and improvement of peoples’ livelihood. This work did also demonstrate that the successful promotion of underutilized species needs to be solidly anchored in cultural-sensitive objectives that are fundamental in the sustainability of this work.
There is a lot more useful information in the article and the references it cites for anyone planning to work on underutilized species. That alone makes it worthwhile. More than that, though, it shows the value of returning to a topic after a little while, sharing the lessons learned, and bringing together in one place the many fascinating new activities, operational and planned.
I hope the African orphan crops project will be able to do something similar in six years time?