- Former CIFOR DG interviewed about Global Forest Watch and more. I would have asked why you can’t import your own data or share a map you make.
- A particularly important place to watch the forest is Honduras, because deforestation there is correlated with cocaine trafficking.
- Not clear from this World Bank piece if deforestation in PNG associated with cultivation of another drug, i.e. coffee.
- Better bananas would be good for forests, wouldn’t they?
- Bah, just let them have corridors, they’ll be fine.
- And don’t forget to eat the forest bugs.
- Ok, I can’t figure out how to fit the history of potato breeding into this narrative. Any of it organic, though?
Nibbles: Brazil agrobiodiversity & nutrition, Chinese mummy cheese, Grey forest literature, ICRISAT chickpea, CIAT cassava & forages, Jamaican cassava
- Brazil revises its National Biodiversity and Action Plan and wants to mainstream biodiversity and nutrition.
- That’s a really old cheese.
- Are you conducting projects testing how the presence of trees affects food production and natural resource management? CIFOR would like to hear from you.
- ICRISAT super-chickpea takes over India.
- And CIAT amylose-free starch cassava to take over Brazil. China next?
- Red Stripe to use cassava. Jamaica? No, they really did want to make cassava beer. Well, come on, things are peachy with cassava bread, why not beer?
Eat up all your Okinawa spinach
Speaking of Amanda, she also recently went on the Living with the Land boat ride at the Epcot theme park at Walt Disney World in Florida.
A relaxing 13-minute boat ride takes you on an informative journey through a tropical rain forest, an African desert complete with sandstorm, and the windswept plains of a small, turn-of-the-century family farm. Guests experience the struggles of the past and plans for farming in the future including Hydroponics, Aeroponics and Aquaculture. It’s not just about fruits and veggies, fish farms are on display. Since The Land is a Disney restaurant supplier, You could very well be seeing your entree. Wonder where those Mickey shaped cucumbers in your salad came from? This is where they’re grown. The educational content on this ride is geared more towards adults, but younger guests will love the boat ride and spotting the different fruits and vegetables.
Very educational, I’m sure. Anyway, this photo of hers featuring Okinawa Spinach caught my eye, even more than the Mickey shaped cucumbers, because I’d never heard of the stuff. Turns out to be Gynura bicolor, and to have really few accessions in the world’s genebanks. I wonder why Disney World picked on it in preference to any number of better known Asian vegetables. And whether they sell seeds in the gift shop. But it’s certainly one way to stimulate interest in a neglected species.
Nibbles: Foley Heinz award, C4 rice history, Fish feeding Africa, Sustainable harvesting, Sorghum death, Carver, Improving crops, Commodity production
- Jonathan Foley, @GlobalEcoGuy, lands well deserved award for his straight-talking on food issues.
- I wonder what he’d say about C4 rice.
- Not sure he’s ever written about fish, but he probably will.
- Sustainable harvesting of Prunus africana maybe not so sustainable after all. Well, I guess that’s science.
- Encomium to the recently-deceased “Father of Sorghum.”
- Shame he missed the round-up on improving abiotic stress tolerance in crops, linked to by AoB Blog.
- Wouldn’t it have been cool if the Father of Sorghum had met the Peanut Man?
- Global production of 10 top commodities has increased 130% since 1960, population by 89%. Draw your own conclusions about world hunger and malnutrition.
The truth about the DDR’s coffee
Many thanks to my colleague Amanda Dobson for this photo (click to embiggen) from the DDR Museum in Berlin. Sometimes one prefers a little less agricultural biodiversity in one’s food — and beverages — doesn’t one?
