Commodity

Nibbles: Long live genebanks, ART in Ireland, Peruvian cacao, Cacao & CC, Canadian aid & wheat, Coffee trials, Organic redux, American garden survey, Cranberry breeding, Bean breeding, Expo Milano 2015, Olive disease, Insect meal, Save cider, Garum, Asian PGR network, Fig vid, McCouch, Pastoralist Knowledge Hub

Sexing up genebanks.
Inventive wheat drought phenotyping. Want more?
The Irish try out other Andean crops. Because the first one worked out so well.
Peruvian cocoa goes up-market. Others might not get the chance.
Latest batch of IDRC food security projects: African veggies, chickpeas, lentils… Meanwhile, back home in Canada…
Some major coffee producers are probably in trouble. Will the International Multi-location Variety Trials help at all?
Crop genomic data boffins say crop genomic data should be free. DivSeek unavailable for comment.
The latest from Rodale on why organic is better. Well, it certainly affects microbial diversity.
Smithsonian helps to preserve the Great American Garden through citizen science.
Blimey, it takes 15 years to release a cranberry cultivar. That’s nothing, Kenyan canning bean breeders say.
Expo Milano 2015 is coming, and Bioversity will be there in force.
The olive is under threat. Always something.
If you don’t want to eat insects, you can always feed them to your livestock.
There’s a campaign to save small cider producers in the UK. which we can all get behind, I’m sure.
Make your own garum. If you must.
Asian countries to launch regional PGR network. What, again?
An ode to figs.
Gotta love ~~weed~~ weeds.
FAO gives pastoralists a voice. Or a website, rather.

Grazing is good for grassland.
Saving British food. And that of Ghana too, why not?
Amaranth the next superfood? Maybe, but I vote we ban that silly term.
The case for fortification: diverse diets are just too hard.
And the latest fruit that’s in trouble is…the avocado.
Wanna “[s]pend your summer in lovely Kew Gardens interacting with the public and opening people’s eyes and noses to the delightful world of spices”?
Photographing the soul of coffee.
Atlas of Living Australia adds nifty phylogenetic thingie.
World Bank says “agriculture has a unique and critical role in improving nutritional status” so it must be true.
Protecting forests from the air.

Where should we collect sweet potato wild relatives?
Cheese made from toe bacteria. Because we can.
The sainted M.S. Swaminathan on millets.
FAO brings together dietary guidelines from around the world.
An infographic on kale origins.
Diversity down, productivity down. At least in Alaska.
Cotton’s got a genome.
McDonalds commits to ending deforestation in its supply chain.
IUCN report says commercial agriculture and forestry could could actually be good for biodiversity. Hope McDonalds read it.

Agriculture and the SDGs in one nice infographic thingy.
Seeds: The Book.
Seeds like millets?
Those medievals really knew how to eat.
An obsessive botanist? Whatever next.
Deconstructing chocolate, one gene at a time.
Sake 101. And for a more in-depth look…
Joseph Simcox, self-described “Internationally Renowned World Food Plant Resource Authority” takes you “on a World Adventure to learn about little known edible plants!” On Facebook.
A journey into the heart of CIMMYT. They’ll even screen your maize for you.
The people’s breeder.
Tracing wine to its source: Georgia.
Harvesting cinnamon. With video goodness.
FAO unleashes its mighty comms machine on another poor neglected crop: yam bean. Not many people hurt.
Watch out jackfruit, you’re probably next.
Or maybe saskatoon berries (Amelanchier alnifolia).

Lamb ham: an easter tradition we can all get behind.
Indian researchers market a new earthworm. Not to bring you down or anything.
PPP are the new black. It says here.
Cassava gets Big Data treatment. That’s kinda biotechnology too. But then you have to commercialize the stuff, right?
“Food price shocks are both a determinant and effect of conflict.”
Recognizing the “rubber soldiers”.
Chinese experts tell Mongolians how to be more resilient to climate change. I hope it works out for them.
New potato and sweet potato varieties for the Pacific come to CePaCT.
Any of those potato varieties benefit from wild relatives?
New plantain variety for Uganda.
Galician genebank gets old brassicas. National genebank unavailable for comment. Actually, national genebank unavailable.
“We can see the blinkered promotion and systematic ‘bigging-up’ of individual agricultural technologies, and their real or imagined impacts, as a direct result of the uncritical acceptance of the language of ‘impact at scale’.”
Biotechnologist says we need biotechnology to feed world. QED.