Archaeology

Nibbles: Neolithic farmers, Minoan DNA, Cretan food, Olive history book, Organic dreams, Fairtrade experiment, Value chains, Jamaican breadfruit exports, Climate smart successes

Neolithic farmers spread into Europe by sea.
And it looks like the ones who got to Crete eventually gave rise to the Minoans.
And ate food not unlike what Cretans ate up to a hundred years ago.
Well of course the olive is important to all that.
Ten thousand years later, we find that organic is an impossible dream.
And Fairtrade may or may not work.
But value chains will make you free. Although that’s easier said than done.
And you have to be climate-smart to boot. Really, who’d be a farmer, in the Neolithic or now.

“Productivism” skewered one last time. Until the next time.
The Malagasy Bean Renaissance. No, really.
The science of beer foam. Now there’s no excuse.
Cocktails can be biodiverse too. You bet they can.
CIAT’s new strategy makes a splash. Genebank front and centre.
New ICIPE director tells all. She used to work at CIAT, did you know?
First edition of The State of the World’s Forest Genetic Resources is out. Now to do something about it.
Italy’s traditional rices preserved. Yes, Italy’s, you heard me.
Agriculture was invented in the current interglacial. Why then, and not in the Eemian?
Quinoa macronutrients exzzzzzzzamined.
Your what-to-do-now guide to the medieval farm. Progress? Not what it’s cracked up to be.
People of the Toluca valley! Expect researchers looking for wild potato genes resistant to late blight.

Conditions at the dawn of Fertile Crescent agriculture were wetter and more, well, fertile. Been downhill ever since.
Digitizing land data may not be good for women.
European agricultural policies bad for diets.
Africa will continue to face droughts. Looks like nobody can catch a break today.
Ah, ok, here’s something good. Italian rice a hit in China. Gotta get your victories where you can.
And some feel-good stuff on cowpea research in Mozambique.
And to conclude our return from the slough of despond, some encouraging news about forest restoration.

A Wheat Germplasm Database To Rule Them All. No, not from CGIAR.
New livestock maps of the world. Yes, from CGIAR.
Kashmir ponders an apple genebank.
More from Game of Strawberries.
Wanna study the population genomics of cheese fungi? Course you do.
Domesticating local fruit trees good for nutrition, but need secure tenure and good planting material.
Building better broccoli, the genome way.
Early domesticated dogs helped in mammoth hunts.
Current extinction rate about 1000 times higher than background. Databases can help with that, believe it or not.
Building a national PGRFA system in Bolivia. When will they ratify the ITPGRFA, though?

GIS geeks sort out land cover at last.
Role of vegetables in combating malnutrition in Africa. Author offers pdf of paper.
Ancient native American middens just keep on giving.
Raspberry colour good predictor of various fruit post-harvest characteristics. Good short-cut for breeders.
Getting to the root of citrus greening. Scary disease.
Freaky stuff about using frog eggs to figure out the genetics of grapevine’s susceptibility to another scary disease.
Video of our friend Dr Nigel Maxted on Jordan’s socioeconomically important plants.
Physician, heal thyself. Indian tells USAID to take care of its own food insecurity.
How to create subsidies that promote biodiversity, in a model, which is probably highly unrealistic.
Very realistic notes from a seed and voucher fair in Malawi.
And anecdotes on the benefits of bean diversity in Uganda.