Commodity

Nibbles: Savannah diversity, Omani banana, Truffle dogs, Taro & reef, Organic returns, Interspecific hybrids, Silk worm DNA, Indian diversity, American-Indian diversity, Aquaculture, Edge of Extinction, Inga key, Mexican forests, Mexican genebank, Beer, Spanish wheat, Commodities & SDGs

Metabarcoding of poop reveals secret of large herbivore diversity in African savannahs.
Unique Omani banana fights pests.
Truffle dogs: “Il cane, le corna non te le mette mai…”
Traditional taro cultivation protects Hawaiian reef.
Organic farming pays.
Climate change favouring offspring of interspecies hybridization. Also in crops? Like brassicas maybe?
Domestication of silk worm probed molecularly. Is that even a word?
Video explains Baranaja. Spoiler alert: it’s the diversity, stupid.
And along the same lines: rare seeds go home.
Brazil wants to be among the top 5 fish producers in the world. What could possibly go wrong.
Extracts from Jules Pretty’s book on what we can all learn from more nature-loving societies.
The key to Inga conservation. Is keys.
Community-based forest management in the Yucatan: “Future generations have the right to know them.” And not just the trees, bees too.
Since we’re in Mexico: a visit to the genebank.
The women of beer. None of them using cassava, though, alas.
“El mercado tiene sus normas y los científicos no las conocemos”.
Agro-commodity traders can be good for you. Somebody mention the market?

Hard times for tea in Kenya. Believe me, I know, the mother-in-law never stops going on about it.
Agroecology, HuffPost piece and video.
Lessons on sustainable forest food harvesting from India.
Fixing Prunus africana harvesting: saying it is easier than doing it. Should have asked the Indians.
Studying weed.
Young people don’t like tequila. Farming its raw material, that is. Should maybe switch to weed? No, wait…
Weird Biblical food.
Did we miss this thing on perennial cereals when it first came out?
Nutritional composition of wheat hasn’t changed in 150 years. Not sure if that good or bad. What will happen when it goes perennial?

Seeds scoped in the Pacific. I doubt the region will feature much in the Access to Seeds Index. Not unless it features community seed production groups like Atauro in East Timor.
Wanna reform the food system? Here’s the theory.
And here’s the practice, at least for wheat (and bread). Though some would probably beg to differ.
Blowing up African retail, one banana at the time.
Biological control of coca. What could possibly go wrong.
The reason for the holes in swiss cheese? We finally have the data.
But personally I prefer halloumi.
There are patents. There is PVP. And there are trademarks. A podcast on apple breeding, if you can believe it.
A whole bunch of heirloom roses all in one place.
Museum boffins find stale tea, Brits go ape.
Go on, have an insect.
Or maybe a nice piece of fish. While you can.
Confused about the UNFCCC negotiations about agriculture? Farming First has you covered.
Famine is history. Discuss.
NSF toolkit for communicating science. Maybe I should have read this before Nibbling.

CIAT 2014 annual report highlights role of genebank in its impact pathways.
Kew post for International Day for Biological Diversity does something similar.
Zambian poachers beat swords into ploughshares, plant peanuts.
Turns out meat is not murder.
Higher carbon dioxide can’t make up for other stuff.
Great BBC Radio 4 series on The Meaning of Trees.
Saving the Jesuit pear tree. Maybe they should put this on the radio.
I’m not sure it would be so bad if prosecco ran out.
Because the genomes of all of the components of beer have now been sequenced, so we’re safe.
Have a a nice cup of chamomile instead.

Fogcatcher ale? Oh I think so!
Greenpeace guides donors on ecological farming. Booklet on the preservation of historical monuments to follow.
Slow Food launches olive oil presidium. Presidium?
The ancient Greeks had wine for breakfast. Explains a lot.
Livestock size changes through the ages.
The sainted Lawrence Haddad on that biofortified pearl millet story from yesterday. Remember that variety can be traced back to a genebank. But not only millet.
Zambians told to look to their neglected traditional crops. By their government. Which is surely complicit in their neglect. Maybe biofortify them first?
Collecting tomato wild relatives.
July drought stops pine trees growing in the SW US.
Building a global genebank system. And again.
Saving the PNG coconut collection from Bogia disease. We need a Svalbard for coconuts is what we need.
Industrial crops and food security in sub-Saharan Africa: mainly complementary, but…