Biotechnology

Nibbles: US Farm Bill, Polish chicks, Young Kenyan farmers, Jowar redux, Handwriting, Erna Bennett, Ant mutualism, Horizontal plastid movement, Horizon scanning

Policy wonks start to worry about the next US Farm Bill and its effects on poor farmers elsewhere.
Poles start to worry about their endangered chicks.
The Youth in Agriculture gives agricultural biodiversity some love on St Valentine’s Day.
“Can jowar ever replace rice?” Question expecting the answer no? (Jowar is sorghum.)
Can anyone actually decipher what H.G. Wells wrote to FAO Director Lubin?
A Memorial Service will be held for Erna Bennett, in English, at 12.30 hrs. on Friday, 9th March at Santa Balbina Church, Viale Guido Baccelli, Rome. It’s near FAO. And no, there’s no link.
Ants help crop wild relative (among other things).
Plastids move between crop and wild relative.
Cambridge boffins look into crystal ball and see fully sequenced, N-fixing perennial cereals growing under sterile conditions. In deep ocean vents.

World Bank runs competition to develop climate change app. CCAFS surrenders.
ICRISAT launches Center of Excellence on Climate Change Research for Plant Protection. CCAFS surrenders.
Britain’s National Fruit Collection gets grafted.
COGENT looks for validation.
Everybody loves timelapse.
A seed catalogue round-up.
“True grits“. Worthy, of course, but basically I love the title.
Not sure why news of a website for the Biofortification Conference held in November 2010 just popped up, but it did.
Know any good, young, committed, practical, gung-ho, field-tempered, agricultural Norman Borlaug clones? The World Food Prize wants to hear from you.
The Millennium Seed Bank has a blog. Welcome, seed-dudes!

Yale University magazine drinks the fast-track breeding KoolAid panacea.
Compare and contrast. Repeat. Endlessly.
Grafting tomatoes is hot for lots of reasons; but how does it protect against leaf-borne diseases? And not just tomatoes, actually.
Getting the lowdown on that “food sovereignty” farrago.
And today’s DNA sequencing will solve world hunger and cure bunions story.
Genomics also good for “health, agriculture, livestock, fisheries and biodiversity” in Philippines. Have we forgotten anything?
Well yeah, you forgot your handy molecular toolkit.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the choice is between forests and yaks.
More hard choices: evotourism destinations. But check it out, there be agricultural biodiversity too!
And another one: to go to the International Sandalwood Symposium, or not to go?

The annual Wageningen agrobiodiversity conservation course is in India this year. Hannes says it’s really good.
AVRDC’s veggie seed kits are a hit in Orissa.
CIMMYT swimming in data. Waving, not drowning.
IRRI not doing badly either. But “quantitative train loci” is a new one on me.
Australia thinking about introducing elephants. Yeah because that sort of thing has been such a success in the past.
Well, actually, with sheep, I suppose it has, in a way. And the genetics says breeders have a lot of diversity to play with still.
Your mama is a llama.
The Island of Dogs has crop wild relatives. No, not the one in London.
Cuba goes for new urban crops. And not for the first time, Shirley. But what about the old ones?
Quick, duck! This piece has been rather a hit for me over on Facebook.
VII International Symposium on Artichoke, Cardoon and Their Wild Relatives: The (Very Expensive) Book.
Food sovereignty “started in New England”. Huh? And proponents “want to eat and sell the food they grow free from interference from state and federal regulators”. Huh?

Banana boffins at each others’ throats over alleged new species. Great spectator sport.
What does a Musa voucher specimen look like, I wonder.
Fancy shmanzy Bangkok restaurant links up with heirloom seedbank.
Aroid network working really hard.
Marker-assisted selection: a biotechnology we can all get behind. Can’t we?
Conservation in Sierra Leone. No agrobiodiversity, natch.