- The Borlaug 100 conference programme now has links to many of the presentations.
- Including a link to Rachel Laudan’s history of Wheat: the grain at the center of civilization.
- Oh boy. A new edition of FAO’s Plant Breeding & Genetics Newdsletter.
- Video on “Reviving Nepal with hybrid tomatoes“. So many questions, so few answers.
Brainfood: By-the-numbers Indian edition, with a touch of Bangladesh
- SGDB: A Sugarcane Germplasm Database. Cool, but only 131 accessions? One would have thought there’d be more.
- Essential Oil Composition of Bothriochloa bladhii (Retz.) S.T. Blake: An Introduction from Tropical Region of Western Ghats of India. It’s a widespread neotropical grass. There are about 200 accessions in the world’s genebanks. I wonder if this lot will end up there too.
- Conservation of agricultural biodiversity – an experience in the Chotonagpur plateau region. By the Indian Statistical Institute, Giridih. 40 horsegrams collected, among other things. Does NBPGR know? Is there a database?
- Genome Classification of Musa cultivars from Northeast India as Revealed by ITS and IRAP Markers. 36 out of 38 cultivars had been correctly identified on morphology. Relationship to the national banana collection unclear.
- Correlation and Path Coefficient Analysis of Quantitative Characters in Spine Gourd (Momordica dioica Roxb.). Now we know what to select for. 50 accessions used.
- Population structure and genetic diversity analysis of Indian and exotic rice (Oryza sativa L.) accessions using SSR markers. Microsat study of 82 Asian genotypes, including some from India, identifies a few markers of use in breeding. Wheel successfully re-invented.
- Livelihood and Revenue: Role of rattans among Mongoloid tribes and settlers of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. Sources of food, building materials and money (via export trade), but only if harvesting is sustainable, which it doesn’t look like it is. Need a plan, including better silviculture and rotational harvesting. Oh, and get rid of the middlemen.
- Bioprospecting, biopiracy and food security in India: The emerging sides of neoliberalism. All of the above are potential neoliberal stooges.
- Comparative karyomorphological studies of three edible locally important species of Allium from India. A chive is not a chive is not a chive. But it’s hard work to tell them apart.
- Crop diversification, crop and energy productivity under raised and sunken beds: results from a seven-year study in a high rainfall organic production system. Rotations including vegetables all round better than rice monocropping. Nothing neoliberal about that. But who does nothing but rice monocropping? I guess these guys could tell you…
Nibbles: Citrus in Italy, Banana genebank, Post-2015, Wheat Yield Partnership, Kenyan seed company, UC Davis symposium, Dingo genetics
- The history of citrus in Italy.
- The Independent visits the global banana genebank and still doesn’t figure out that there are no seeds there.
- Rome-based UN food agencies come up with post-2015 food security and nutrition targets. Not many people hurt.
- The wheat people have the answer.
- Going where no seed company has gone before.
- UC Davis Plant Breeding symposium to feature CIP genebank stalwart.
- The dingo is different.
Nibbles: Sustainability, Cattle domestication, Grain domestication, Peanut genome, Peanut breeding, Seed systems, Food prices, Climate stuff, Aid
- Sustainability and wildcrafting; not overharvesting frankincense, or anything else.
- Another take on cattle domestication.
- And the spread of ancient grains.
- Everyone wants to take credit for the peanut genome …
- Learn why that’s a good thing courtesy of the Generation Challenge Programme.
- A new website to ensure that seed aid after a disaster is not itself a disaster.
- Ah, the joys of walking the policy tightrope: Higher food prices are good for the poor … in the long run.
- Nice piece from the data nerds at 538: Can Evolution Outrace Climate Change?
- On a related note, can Bioversity outrace the IPCC?
- “The US Agency for International Development (USAID) today announced the launch of its US$100-million Global Development Lab in Washington DC — a move that will elevate the role of science at the agency.” WCPGW?
Nibbles: Rice intensification, Community genebank, Biodiversity & poverty, Borlaug, Deconstructing recipes, Biofortification conference, IPCC, Kenyan agricultural changes, Collecting wild chickpeas, African peanuts, Insurance for herders, Old fields, Millet fairs & diseases, GDP and malnutrition, Yeast evolution
- From SRI to SARI. Rice has never had it so good.
- Look there’s even a guy in Orisha who grows 920 varieties.
- Biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction: Unproven. Doesn’t sound like they looked at agricultural biodiversity though.
- Contrary take on the Borlaug legacy.
- From Map Your Recipe to Compare Your Recipe. h/t Rachel Laudan.
- Follow that biofortification conference in Kigali. Maybe they’ll talk about recipes.
- Guardian Environment blogger breaks down the agricultural bits of the IPCC report for you. Lots of that going around.
- No conceivable reason for growing jatropha in Kenya. One of those times when you wonder whether anyone had predicted this would happen at the time.
- So does anyone know now whether switching from coffee to banana might be a bad idea in the long run? This is your chance.
- Wild chickpea to the rescue.
- The ups and downs of groundnut research in Africa.
- Islamic insurance for herders. Demand, meet supply.
- Celtic fields can still be seen, if you know what to look for.
- Seed fair in Senegal exchanges pearl millet. Could usefully do the same in Namibia, it looks like.
- Does economic growth help in reducing child malnutrition? It depends on whether you plot % malnutrition against GDP per capita or annual change of the first against annual change in the latter.
- The complicated story of yeast, unravelled.