- 17 years of data confirm fears of bee decline.
- Slideshow on Egyptian Deserts Genebank; prepare to be astounded.
- Slideshow on US National Plant Germplasm System; prepare to be even more astounded.
- Livestock and climate change, a background paper from ILRI.
- “Most new farmland comes from cutting tropical forest.” The good news: it’s corporate, so can be pressured to stop.
Nibbles: Cattle nutrition, Maize, Freshwater biota, Modeling maize, Rice, Book, Veg, Urban ag
- Climate change ain’t going to be good for cattle.
- But will be fabulous for breeders of drought-resistant maize.
- A fifth of Africa’s freshwater plants and animals threatened. How many of these are important to local people’s nutrition and health? A lot, I bet.
- Just a couple guys, modeling the spread of maize genetic diversity in the Americas.
- Uganda turns to wild relatives for new rice varieties.
- Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century recognizes importance of agrobiodiversity. Good to know.
- New Agriculturalist revisits veg-garden-in-a-sack.
- FAO policy brief on urban agriculture.
Nibbles: School food, India, Orchids, Biocontrol, Breastfeeding, Conch, Africa
- Host a volunteer school food gardener (in the US).
- M.S. Swaminathan’s menu for food security in India. Burp.
- Purmina Menon’s menu for food security in India takes us beyond food. Pardon me.
- Anyone for edible orchids? Anissa Helou on salep.
- Wasp flies in hot pursuit of cassava mealybugs.
- Melinda ♡ breastfeeding. The basis for sound nutrition.
- Humped conch got bigger as a result of human activities — despite being hunted. Complex.
- “Africa to become world’s breadbasket.” Makes a change from being the world’s basketcase.
Nibbles: Pavlovsk, Maize, Papaver somniferum, Organics, Zulu gardens, Feasts, Female farmers, Transhumance, Dogs
- Bioversity International and UNEP jointly pile on the pressure to preserve Pavlovsk …
- … as do plant professors from University of Wisonsin.
- Mexican maize farmers using CIMMYT genebank materials to adapt their varieties. Why not in Africa, then?
- High praise for a novel on opium.
- Mat Kinase takes Time to task over lacklustre organics article.
- King Goodwill Zwelithini calls for One Home One Garden campaign to support food-growing and nutrition.
- Feasts predate agriculture. Well, yeah.
- Female farmers … a bloke writes.
- Great pic on the joys of modern transhumance.
- Resurrecting the Maize King. And why not?
- More than anyone has a right to know about dogs in the ancient world.
Nibbles: Biotech to the rescue, Chinese horses, Soybean carotenoids, CropMobs, Nutrition, Coffee pests, Varroa, Berries, NUS
- Genejockeys say they have sorted that global food supply problem everybody’s been so antsy about lately. No, wait, maybe it’s this.
- China has 23 indigenous horse breeds. At least.
- Latest crop to get the orange treatment is soybean.
- Diverse ways of doing agriculture: Could CropMobs go global?
- Choose foods, not nutrients. Heck, yes.
- Globally warmed beetles threatening your coffee crops? Bring on biodiversity!
- Brit breeds bees for better grooming.
- How to get the most out of your wild blueberries. Maybe we should tell Medvedev?
- Emerging Crops is a new NUS project, and it has a website.