India is to build a national biodiversity information system. Will it include agricultural biodiversity? Not clear from the short article in The Hindu, but I hope to be surprised. The National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources does have relevant databases (though not all online yet)…
FAO developing forestry strategy
Archaeo-agrobiodiversity discoveries highlighted
Squash seeds and chickens feature among the Top Ten discoveries of 2007, according to Archaeology Magazine. I believe we linked to both of these stories when they first appeared. The article on Polynesian breakthroughs also mentions work on pigs that we blogged about.
Rice maps
I’ve linked on a couple of occasions to Robert Hijmans’ rice maps, as published in IRRI’s Rice Today magazine. Robert has now put these all together on a single webpage. Good idea.
FAO highlights giant swamp taro
A press release by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has highlighted a paper in the latest edition of the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, sponsored by FAO.  The study reveals the potential health benefits of giant swamp taro, an increasingly neglected crop in Micronesia, where there are serious nutrition problems, as traditional foods are being replaced by imported foods of lower nutritional content. The release points out thatÂ
… a group of researchers from the Federated States of Micronesia, Switzerland, Fiji, Australia, USA, and Palau have generated new data, and confirmed previous findings, showing that Micronesian giant swamp taro (Cyrtosperma merkusii) varieties are rich sources of nutrients. For the first time, the researchers present data on carotenoid and mineral content of many varieties of giant swamp taro, in addition to dietary characteristics of Micronesian citizens. According to lead researcher Lois Englberger, certain varieties contain high amounts of micronutrients, including beta-carotene and essential minerals such as zinc, iron, and calcium.