Climate change

Nibbles: China, Andean roots and tubers, pigs, greenhouse gases, locavores, drought, mapping horticulture, 2010 Growing Green Awards, canker, World Bank, threats, cashmere

China’s role in food price spikes. Books sounds worth reading.
Dutch chefs easily fascinated. Just show ’em an Andean root or tuber.
Much more on that pig domestication story.
Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases agrees its agenda. In New Zealand. Jeremy avoids snarky remark.
New York Times debates locavorism. Someone has to.
Monsanto, DuPont Race to Win $2.7 Billion Drought-Corn Market. Africa says Yay!
If you have an horticultural development project, Horticultural CRSP and GlobalHort want to hear from you.
More environmental awards handed out. Recipients asked to blog.
Chestnuts out of fire?
Data!
Really, who’d be a farmer?
Chinese clone woollier cashmere goats. Why not just clone the wool directly, cut out the middleman?
Tales of maize and tomato hybrids.

“Housed in the towering old 1926 Sonoma County Bank, it’s hard to miss the Seed Bank.” And who would want to anyway.
Of apples, leaf miners and bacteria. Great story.
Best synthesis and analysis of the Mongolian dzud story so far.
Visualize your GPS data! Not agrobiodiversity, I know, but I don’t have another blog.
Coca myths debunked. Sniff sniff.
“Crop domestication and the first plant breeders” book charpter online.
Rebranding Asian carp. Hard row to hoe. Thanks, Don.
190,000 year old clothes had lice. 190,000 year old humans had clothes?
More citizen science stuff, this one on effect of climate change on plant phenology in the US.
IFAD publishes bunch of livestock-related papers. ILRI, are you listening?
“It’s 36 percent more efficient to grow grain for food than for fuel.” Good to have a number.
Boffins do their aDNA thing on Chinese pigs, find continuity, multiple domestication, sweet and sour sauce recipe.
Soil Association begs to differ on that whole UKworld-needs-to-double-food-production thing.

ILRI annual programme meeting thing gets Twitter treatment. Web 2.0 seizes up.
Via EcoagriculturePartners newsletter, news that agroBiodiversity has a new website. Web 1.0 surrenders.
And the prize for the weirdest name for a tree-planting initiative goes to…
The water footprint of pasta is greater than that of pizza. Still no cure for cancer.
Microbes good for soil. I see that, and I raise you termites. Take that, Dirt Diva.
Fish farming in dryland Kenya. Must get out to see one of these next time I’m there, maybe set one up on mother-in-law’s farm. And get her one of these funky backpacks while I’m at it. Wouldn’t want her to laze about.
Farmer Brown (sic) from Ghana talks about his grasscutters.
Ever wonder how one cultivates truffles? Wonder no more.
FAO librarian answers agroclimatological query. Lots of databases for you to explore is the result.
And also from FAO, the latest on the state of the world’s forests. More databases no doubt involved.
Damn, you mean diversity can be good for disease?
Study says that to “be effective plant breeders, … should also be equipped with strong critical thinking and time management skills, and a well-founded work ethic.” Still no cure for cancer.
Climate change to affect beer? Now it’s personal!
Wonder how Ugandans feel about that? Guide to Ugandan Beer, Part 1.
Pollinators do the Harlem Flutter.

Ah, but only confusingly, and to downplay their current usefulness:

Wild relatives of crops could be better suited to harsher climes, but efforts to collect and breed such crops are just beginning.

The rest of the article tells you why Africa needs GMOs.

Jeremy probes into wild asses at Vaviblog.
Mapping the evolution of pathogens. And in kinda related news…
The European oyster needs diversity. Well, natch.
The tree forests of Yunnan, and, concidentally, the story of how the secret of their product got out.
The Kaçkar Mountains at Yusufeli, northeast Turkey are in trouble. Any crop wild relatives there, among the bears and other charismatic megafauna?
Speaking of Turkey, here’s how to make one of its delicacies. But hey, if you don’t have vine leaves, you can use this.
Having fun with yams.
Drori does pollen.
FAO’s Mitigation of Climate Change in Agriculture (MICCA) Project. Any agrobiodiversity-related stuff? Need to explore…
“…conserving species may only require specific activities, such as collect and distributing seeds.”
African school feeding programme uses “local” products. What would Paarlberg say? You can find out here, if you have 90 minutes to spare.
British boffins breed self-shearing sheep. No, really.