Biotechnology

March 31, 2015March 31, 2015

Nibbles: Rabbit origins, New beans and rice, New maize, Fermentation, Grape bugs, Kenya supergoats, Peruvian edible insects, Betelmania, Sustainable cacao, Making cider, Land rights, Kew funding, Avocado origins, German genebank, Oman roadshow, Chinese agriculture then and now, Underground farm, Irish potatoes, Lactase history, Nutrition report, Breeding wheat, Pulse year, Perennial cereals, Shaker agriculture, Food conference, Lupin breeding, Tanzanian ag landscapes, Coffee film, American food, Breakfast around the world, Indian wild figs, Baobab, Fragmentation, History of breeding, MARDI fruits, IARI head, Wild pig genome, Breed typology

Yeah, I know, been slacking with the blogging again of late. Lots of travel. Will try to post about it a bit now I’m back. Here’s the usual back-in-the-office game of catch-up.

We start with something topical for Easter. The origin of the bunny: it’s not the genes, it’s the gene control control.
CIAT’s heat-resistant beans are all over the internet. IRRI’s new rices, not so much.
I hope they get names like Bill Tracy’s new open-pollinated maize variety.
Bugs come in communities, and they do best when they stay that way.
Even on grapes.
Gotta get me one of these Kenyan supergoats.
Are bugs next on Peru’s gastronomia menu? Probably not.
Ban the betel!
More on that we-need-GMO-to-save-chocolate thing. Because this?
Some like it hard.
Three steps to secure land rights.
“If the seeds are never grown, they will fizzle out. Who is going to sow them and harvest them to keep them fresh?”
The avocado shouldn’t be here. So sue me.
The Ghana News Agency (and nobody else) says there’s a new genebank in Berlin.
Oman’s biodiversity (including agricultural) goes on the road.
Chinese agriculture goes sustainable. Well, in theory. Including for buckwheat, presumably.
Maybe you can work out what this early Chinese flour was actually of: millet, barley and/or wheat?
Meanwhile, in Japan, the opposite of sustainable farming beneath a Tokyo street.
The Irish and the potato: in need of a reset?
Want to develop? Learn to metabolize lactose.
Ten research questions on nutrition.
Well at least this gluten nonsense ¹ is helping bring back some funky grains. And is spurring breeders. Who should perhaps be focusing on more important problems?
Pulses will get their 15 minutes in 2016.
The Land Institute is still at it, and still getting press.
The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing established one of the earliest seed companies in the US.
No, getting to the bottom of food ain’t easy.
Lupins better than soya in the UK, because breeding.
A Tanzanian mash-up: Farmers need the landscape. I’m not kidding. And yet…
There’s a film about coffee called “A film about coffee.”
“In the future, the American dream of big cars and burgers will need to be adjusted to more active transport and sustainable, healthy eating. Better is the new bigger. The world needs a new diet. And it is waiting for the US to take the lead.” Good luck with that.
Maybe start with breakfast?
Indians need their wild figs.
As much a African need baobabs, probably.
A fragmented forest is no forest at all. Well, almost.
BHL does domestication. As ever, great pix too.
Malaysia protects its fruits.
Who will head the Indian Agricultural Research Institute?
The pygmy hog has been sequenced.
A typology of livestock breeds.

March 16, 2015March 5, 2015

Brainfood: Camelina improvement, School garden impact, Biodiversity rice, Seed networks, Indian wheat geography, Protected areas, Late blight resistance, Peanut biotech

Camelina as a sustainable oilseed crop: Contributions of plant breeding and genetic engineering. It will help that it’s close to Arabidopsis.
Sustenance and sustainability: maximizing the impact of school gardens on health outcomes. You need proper experimental design if you’re going to say that such an impact exists. But such an impact probably exists, sometimes.
Consumer preferences for agricultural products considering the value of biodiversity conservation in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Consumers are willing to pay extra for crane-friendly rice. Or at least they say they are.
An Analysis of Social Seed Network and Its Contribution to On-Farm Conservation of Crop Genetic Diversity in Nepal. Fancy software shows farmers exchange seeds, and it’s important.
Spatial Distribution of Trait-specific Diversity in Indian Wheat Collections. From 5930, 3973 are geo-referenced, showing where more collections need to be made. Unless of course they are among those 1957 and nobody can tell.
Walk on the Wild Side: Estimating the Global Magnitude of Visits to Protected Areas. 8 billion visits per year (80% in Europe and North America), generating $600 billion per year in direct in-country expenditure and $250 billion in consumer surplus. Remember that we spent $10 billion per year worldwide in safeguarding protected areas.
Allele Mining in Solanum Germplasm: Cloning and Characterization of RB-Homologous Gene Fragments from Late Blight Resistant Wild Potato Species. 17 gene fragments from 11 wild potato species could be useful in breeding for late blight resistance.
Genetic diversity of the world’s largest oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) field genebank accessions using microsatellite markers. Extreme West Africa group, West-Central-East Africa group and Madagascar group, with the last quite distinct.
Progress in genetic engineering of peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) — A review. Our jetpacks are in the mail.

March 8, 2015March 8, 2015

Nibbles: Berlin blueberries, Science hubris, Purple tea, Soil, Bushmeat, Maize breeding, Ukranian salo

Must get myself a blueberry comb come next autumn.
What do scientists do in response to GMO fears? “Trust us.”
Purple tea in Kenya? Must look out for it.
Real farmers do it on the soil.
Bushmeat can be good for you.
Private sector uses public sector genebank. You didn’t build that.
“Salo is when nobody fucks with you and you’ve got a bit of money.”

March 6, 2015March 6, 2015

Nibbles: Smelly yeast, Native American products, Perennial rice, Ag origins

Yeast perfume. Great for Valentine’s Day.
Webinar of discussion on “Origin Products and Native American Tribes: EU and U.S. Law and Policy.”
The perennial attraction of perennial rice.
Ancient Nubians knew domesticated wheat and barley earlier than thought. But not as early as Britons.

February 22, 2015February 24, 2015

Nibbles: Year of the Goat, Nutritional guidelines, Healthy diets, IK & conservation, Healthy orchards, Indian endemics trouble, CWR garden, NGS & food security, 3000 rice genomes at work, C4 rice, It’s economics stupid, US animal products map, Milk production history, Old Chinese cheese, Old Arabian seashells by the seashore, Gordon Bleu insects, African agriculture visions, Agroecology conference report, Smallholder diversity, Seed systems project, Supermarket farms, Toronto beer, Herbs factsheets, Ecosystems map, Contested Agronomy

Sorry about no blogging last week. Was watching sausages being made. Here’s a quick roundup of most of the stuff I would have Nibbled.

But first of all, Happy Year of the Ram, everyone. No, wait…
Brazil has the best nutritional guidelines.
But Chad the best diet. Both are kinda ironic.
Well, what can governments do about supporting healthy food preferences anyway?
Folk knowledge vital to conservation.
Well I never, say the East Timorese.
Farming in a national park can be a win-win.
Maybe even a win-win-win, if cider apples are involved.
India’s endemic plants could be in trouble. Many crop wild relatives among them?
Maybe they should do what the Royal Horticultural Society will be doing at the Malvern Spring Festival and make a garden with crop wild relatives. But then it won’t be the world’s first.
Next generation genomics is this generation’s jetpack.
No, wait, here’s that jetpack you’ve been expecting for so long… Well, more the first concept of the assembly instructions, really.
We’ll get that jetpack before C4 rice, I expect. But we will get both.
But of course it’s not all about production anyway.
Squid is Rhode Island’s most lucrative animal product. Otherwise it’s mainly milk, in that part of the US.
Maybe cheese was the Taklamakan’s. Three thousand years ago. And sea molluscs Saudi Arabia‘s. Five thousand years ago.
When and where will insects be.
“Large-scale investment in African agriculture and agribusiness, whether foreign, domestic, private, government-backed, or a combination of these, could pay a vital role in providing urgently needed financing, technology and markets, thereby assisting to ensure food security, contributing to poverty reduction and propelling agriculture-driven growth, with significant implications for achieving more inclusive growth.” Is that really all one sentence?
Or maybe small-scale investment?
How much investment in agroecology will there be, I wonder. Even after this report from last year’s FAO conference.
Oh good, 75% of crop diversity still on small farms. Would that be 75% of the 25% remaining from the last century?
What effect will the Integrated Seed Sector Development Project Africa have on that 75%, I wonder.
The farm as a supermarket. Almost makes you believe in that 75%.
The beery history of Toronto. Yes, Toronto.
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) has nutritional fact sheets on herbs.
A great new global ecosystem map has the GIS nerds all excited.
“Contested Agronomy 2016 is a conference about the battlefields in agricultural research, past and present.” Oh to have the live-tweeting gig. Hell, I’d do it for free. Wait, don’t I already do it for free? Hasn’t this whole Nibbles been about contestation in agricultural development?

And on that note, that’s all folks. Because this was such a pain to put together after a week’s hiatus, I’m going to leave it on the front page for a day or two before sending it to the Siberia of the sidebar. Oh and BTW, people. We want to reach 6,000 followers on Twitter, preferably before that jetpack arrives, so follow us already, and tell your hipster friends.

Wait, too needy?