- Neolithic parboiled bulgur wheat.
- Applying “catch shares” to bushmeat.
- The pros and cons of fish farming in Latin America.
- “It’s a masochistic business. Masochistic.”
Agrobiodiversity gets new blogger!
The more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed, looking at the byline of the previous post, that we have a new regular contributor. He’s Robert Hijmans, and he has in fact written for us before, most memorably his tour-de-force liveblogging from the recent Harlan II Symposium. Welcome to the team, Robert.
Water hyacinth not so bad after all
Sure, the water hyacinth is a terrible weed on Lake Victoria. But, as I blogged last year, it does have some redeeming features, for example it can be used to make furniture. Now comes news that it can also be fed to animals, and that it shelters catfish fingerlings. ((Coincidentally, there was another heartwarming aquaculture piece from Africa in the news today.)) One man’s invasive weed is another woman’s income-earning opportunity. How long before it is officially classed as agrobiodiversity?
LATER: Ok, apologies. A comment alerted me to the fact that I had misread the article, and that hippo grass is not water hyacinth, but rather (probably) Echinochloa stagnina. The perils of common names. But the fact remains that people are making use of a plant that to many is a pest. The dividing line between useful agrobiodiversity and noxious weed can be hard to define. Thank you, Inoculated Mind.
Nibbles: Milk, Capsicum, Beef, Fruits
- Adventures in Food No. 1: Camel milk chocolate.
- Adventures in Food No. 2: Hawaiian Chili Water.
- Adventures in Food No. 3: Beef.
- Adventures in Food No. 4: Fruits from abandoned orchards.
American farmers got stoned a lot
Two articles this morning both point to the widespread use of hallucinogenic plants in ancient South America. National Geographic reports that traces of the mind-altering substance harmine have been found in the hair of Tiwanaku mummies from the coastal Chilean desert dating back to 800-1200 AD. Harmine comes from the Amazonian vine Banisteriopsis caapi, which suggests that an extensive trade network linked the rainforest to the desert. Elaborate sniffing kits have been found in many Tiwanaku tombs and also, as a Times article points out, at the other end of the continent in the Caribbean. Archaeologists have found ceramic bowls and inhaling tubes on the island of Carriacou and have identified them as originating in South America between 100-400 BC. The drug of choice in this case may have been cohoba.
So why was everyone getting high?
Richard Davenport-Hines, a former history lecturer at the London School of Economics and author of The Pursuit of Oblivion, a global history of narcotics, believes humans have been using drugs for thousands of years. “Drug use became widespread in many early agriculture-based societies simply because it was the only way people could cope with spending long hours working in the fields, often in horrible conditions like baking sun,” he said.