Ok, so who knew that John Cage was also “an avid mycologist, collector and consumer of mushrooms“?
Berry Go Round 30 – Come Together
The latest Berry Go Round is up at Brainripples. If you got here from there (or even if you didn’t), welcome! And do go back and read the other cool botanical stuff after you’re finished here.
Feeding you the Pavlovsk feed
Our ever-attentive reader will have noticed today’s Nibble on the TweetMedvedev campaign. It refers to an effort to save the priceless collection of fruits and berries at the Vavilov Institute’s Pavlovsk Station, just outside St Petersburg. Do please tweet President Medvedev, as suggested by Cary Fowler in his latest Huffington Post piece. To further highlight this important initiative, we are also bringing you a feed of a search on Twitter for the #Pavlovsk hashtag. Just scroll down the right sidebar past the featured comment box. We’re here to serve.
Tweet this: @KremlinRussia_E Mr. President, protect the future of food – save #Pavlovsk Station! http://huff.to/pavlsk
Nibbles: CGIAR “change”, Cuba, Data, Pavlovsk, Homegardens, Soil bacteria, Thai rice
- GFAR publishes list of Megaprogramme (or whatever they are called) consultations.
- Cuba’s Miscellaneous Crops Under-delegate Rolando Macias Cardenas reports on tomato paste. In other news, Cuba has a Miscellaneous Crops Under-delegate. No, wait, that’s not really news.
- While Sachs et al. moan about better agricultural data, CIAT go out and get it.
- The Pavlovsk TweetMedvedev campaign rolls on.
- “…maximum diversity can be conserved at an intermediate level of income” in Javanese bamboo-tree homegardens.
- Right, so trees “farm” bacteria. What some people will write in a press release.
- Thailand’s rice farmers trying to cope with climate change. Like they have a choice.
Featured: Bitterness and toxicity in food
After a rich commentary on a recent post on how farmers detoxify cassava, Pablo seems to be about to throw up his hands in despair, but steps back from the brink:
I begin to think that ignoring examples such as these, with lessons and clear examples that are rigorously scientific and practical is not about lack of evidence or oversight, but a policy to eliminate smallholder agriculture and the knowledge it holds. This would remove any viable alternative to the agro-industrial hegemony over our food and our diverse agrarian landscapes. I hope my fears are misplaced.