- Wild coffee studied; report from Madagascar.
- Adding value to tequila. Lots of value.
- Vietnamese farmers go wild.
- Vietnamese farmers get drunk.
- All about Vitamin D.
- “…cranberries are the neglected stepchild of the season.”
- What does that make the turkey?
- Gates Foundation moves into space. Via.
Nibbles: US, Wheat, Drylands, Cacao, Fast food, Cheese, Dogs
- USDA goes to the closets.
- Brazil to teach Tunisia how to grow wheat. Exchange of germplasm involved.
- ICRISAT DG makes a pitch for dryland farmers. And aquaculturists?
- A plan for cacao sustainability in Africa agreed. Germplasm not involved?
- Americans eat a lot of corn. A lot.
- The romance of cheese-making. Romance? These people should get out more.
- Peru offers Obamas a “cute” puppy. I still prefer the Mexican version.
Cassava rules
The IITA public awareness machine must be in overdrive, and it looks like it’s running on cassava. Today
- a cassava mosaic project got a namecheck in the Sunday Tribune,
- news of a newly released drought tolerant variety got picked up in African Science News Service, and
- a meeting on value addition got an article in the wonderfully-named Daily Triumph.
Not that I’m complaining. It’s about time cassava got the attention it deserves in Africa.
Chocolate industry meets all over the place
The cacao community is meeting in Ghana under the sponsorship of Mars to draft a plan for sustainable cacao farming in Africa:
Topics on the table range from multifunctional agriculture, genetics and germplasm, to pest and disease, and science and leadership.
I hope they will also consider the kind of value-adding that is being discussed at the just-opened annual Paris chocolate show.
Nibbles: Wild food, Sisal, Cucurbits, Carnival, Rice blight
- Zimbabwean take to wild foods, and not in a good way.
- “It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see my sisal flooring.”
- Gourds+Halloween=Jawdropping Creativity.
- Tangled Bank 117.
- “Terror agent” listing for Xanthomanas oryzae blights US rice research.