Commodity

July 21, 2010July 21, 2010

Beer drinkers finally get recognition they deserve

We have been keeping an interested eye on the apparent resurgence of sorghum in some parts of Africa, driven by climate change, sure, but also by man’s (and woman’s) unquenchable thirst for beer. The latest story along those happy lines comes from Kenya. It might have remained a mere Nibble, but for the coincidental appearance of a study suggesting that “beer drinkers can serve as role models for the nation as it struggles to emerge from recession.” In Britain and, presumably, in Africa too.

LATER: Oh, and this just in too. A fine day for beer drinkers indeed.

July 21, 2010July 21, 2010

Nibbles: Wetlands, Cucurbit phylogeny, Herbology, Malnutrition, Fungi, India, Livestock, Ug99, Madagascar, Beer

Conserving dambos for livelihoods in southern Africa. How many CWRs are found in such wetland habitats around the world, I wonder.
Cucumis not out of Africa.
Exploring “the connection between traditional knowledge of herbs, edible and medicinal plants and media networked culture.” And why not.
PBS video on malnutrition.
Fungal exhibition at RBG Edinburgh.
Indian Council on Agricultural Research framing guidelines for private-public partnerships in seed sector. That’ll stop the GM seed pirates.
Conserve African humpless cattle! They’re needed for breeding.
UG99 — and crop wild relatives — in the news. The proper news. The one people pay attention to.
Vanilla lovers better start stocking up.
Kenyan farmers earning money selling sorghum to brewers. What’s not to like.

July 19, 2010July 20, 2010

Multimedia cacao

A couple of days ago we Nibbled a set of cacao photos from Sustainable Harvest International. I thought at the time it probably deserved better exposure, and I’m happy to be given the excuse to provide it by the appearance on YouTube of a sweet little cartoon on the cacao tree, courtesy of Kew. And by the start of a series of posts on how chocolate is made, by Rachel Laudan.

And speaking of cacao, this just in: A London hedge fund last week took delivery of contracts for about 7% of the world’s cacao producction, according to a report in The Guardian. (h/t The Tracing Paper). Coincidentally, or not, the price of cacao has increased 150% over the past 18 months.

July 19, 2010

CIFOR corrects itself

Those of you who headed over to CIFOR’s Facebook page to see whether they really did link there to a piece from the oil palm advocacy group Palmhugger trashing Greenpeace, as I said in my Nibble of a few minutes ago, will have been disappointed. It has gone. When I tried to comment on it, I was not allowed to, for the very good reason that the thing was not there any more. No, really. I’m almost 100% sure I didn’t imagine the whole thing. Did someone at CIFOR actually read the article and think better of publicizing it? What do they know about Palmhugger? I think we should be told.

July 19, 2010July 19, 2010

Nibbles: Oil palm, Breadfruit, Barcoding, Guyana genebank, Wheat and heat

Palmhugger, an oilpalm advocacy group, likens Greenpeace to Goebbels. Who are they really? CIFOR is linking to them on Facebook, so they’re probably kosher, right?
Nice story on breadfruit in Hawaii.
More barcoding stuff.
Reader: We must have a bank of seeds of our fruits and vegetables. Minister of Agriculture: We do!
Australian wheat boffins: “Adaptation strategies need to be considered now to prevent substantial yield losses in wheat from increasing future heat stress.”