Commodity

January 9, 2014

Nibbles: Pig evolution, Genomics field guide, Genome editing, Chilean agroecology training, Oxford Farming Conferences, Grape variety database, Food prices database, Amazonian history, Debunking tomatoes, INFOODS NUS list, Coptic gardens, Aid agencies map

The catching up continues:

“Genomics is a powerful tool…”: Pigs speciate, admix, fly.
But in the wrong hands…
I wonder which types of hands these genome editors have.
Ok, enough of that. Women, agroecology, capacity building, a fashionable country: what’s not to like?
I wonder if any of the ladies are at the Oxford Real Farming Conference. Or were. They were probably NOT at the Oxford Farming Conference. Oh the wit of these alternative farming types. You could have followed both on Twitter, were you so minded, and less confused than I.
Chile — for it is she — of course grows a lot of grapes. Want to know which varieties? Course you do.
Damn, grapes not included in this World Bank crowd-sourced food price dataset. Which I think we may have linked to before, but what the hell.
I know we’ve linked to ancient Amazonian civilization stuff before, but this is a predictive model, no less.
Busted: The tomato.
The INFOODS “List of underutilized species contributing to the Nutritional Indicators for Biodiversity” is out. Prices not included.
I somehow thought there would be more underutilized species in this Ethiopian monastery.
Who pays for (some of) this? Check out the Guardian’s interactive map of European development agencies.

December 23, 2013December 2, 2013

Brainfood: Yam age, Cacao conservation, Eucarpia consultation report, Wheat sequencing, Pesticides & earthworms, Abandoned farmland & conservation, Agroforestry, New Guinea agriculture, Soybean cores, Bean taste

Clonal diversity and estimation of relative clone age: application to agrobiodiversity of yam (Dioscorea rotundata). Some clones are almost two thousand years old.
Development of a cost-effective diversity-maximising decision-support tool for in situ crop genetic resources conservation. The case of cacao. Sure, you can use molecular markers and fancy maths, but in the end you’ll still need to make some judgement calls.
Fishing in the gene pool — how useful was the catch? We have the technology. Do we have the policies?
The Wheat Black Jack: Advances Towards Sequencing the 21 Chromosomes of Bread Wheat. See what I mean about the technologies?
Reduction of pesticide use can increase earthworm populations in wheat crops in a European temperate region. Prince Charles will be pleased.
Areas of Increasing Agricultural Abandonment Overlap the Distribution of Previously Common, Currently Threatened Plant Species. In Japan, abandoned farmland can be good and bad for threatened species. Damn scientists. Never a straight answer.
Can agroforestry option values improve the functioning of drivers of agricultural intensification in Africa? Yes. But please, sir, what’s option value?
Biodiversity through Domestication. Examples from New Guinea. What 8000 years of horticulture will do to diversity. I wonder if some yam clones go back that long.
Establishment of the integrated applied core collection and its comparison with mini core collection in soybean (Glycine max). You lost me at integrated.
Variability in sensory attributes in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.): a first survey in the Iberian secondary diversity center. Agronomy does not correlate with taste. So you can breed for both.

December 13, 2013December 13, 2013

Nibbles: Banana bionformatics, Banana problems, Dietary diversity indicator, SoD meet, MSSRF & millets, Intercropping tree crops, Ecosystem management, UNEP atlas, Pacific ABS, Seed theft

Data geeks tuck into bananas.
Will it help the Filipino smallholder, though?
Dietary diversity suggested as an indicator of welfare at national level. Wow.
Seeds of Discovery discovers it has made progress.
Celebrating a potato breeder. We should do more of that.
Beer-fueled conservation. Not what you’re thinking.
Milling minor millets means more money.
CIRAD breaks down intercropping rubber. And nutmeg?
Better forest governance by the numbers. How about savannas
Arab region gets an environmental atlas. Also in Google Earth.
The Pacific learns about the ITPGRFA. Not for the first time…
I guess these guys didn’t know about MTAs.

December 9, 2013December 9, 2013

Brainfood: Gaming landuse decisions, Natura 2000, Expressing pears, Medicinal rice, Agroforestry and conservation, Grasslands, Cotton diversity, Ancient cattle, Neolithic Balkans, Indian guar

Gaming for smallholder participation in the design of more sustainable agricultural landscapes. Board game can be used to facilitate communal decision-making in landuse planning in the buffer zone of a Man and Biosphere Reserve. What’s not to like?
Mixed effects of long-term conservation investment in Natura 2000 farmland. It has been good for some things, not so good for others. No word on how CWRs have fared.
Microarray analysis of gene expression patterns during fruit development in European pear (Pyrus communis). They’re different to those of Japanese pear (Pyrus pyrifolia).
Quantitative and molecular analyses reveal a deep genetic divergence between the ancient medicinal rice (Oryza sativa) Njavara and syntopic traditional cultivars. Njavara is a cryptic variant of traditional Kerala varieties.
Relationships between Biodiversity and Biological Control in Agroecosystems: Current Status and Future Challenges. Management should aim to suppress pests while maintaining diversity of natural enemy guilds. Easier said than done, I suspect.
Agroforestry and Biodiversity Conservation in Tropical Landscapes. Between agroforestry cause and conservation effect are a bunch of pesky assumptions. I wonder if gaming would help.
Livestock grazing and biodiversity in semi-natural grasslands. It can be good. Just one paper in the proceedings of a recent major conference on grasslands.
Genetic diversity and population structure in the US Upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.). Who needs wild relatives when you have diverse obsolete varieties?
Morphological and genetic evidence for early Holocene cattle management in northeastern China. Archaeology and DNA suggest parallel domestication of cattle in China.
Domesticated Animals and Biodiversity: Early Agriculture at the Gates of Europe and Long-term Ecological Consequences. For thousands of years the impact of agriculture in the Balkans was limited.
Characterization of released and elite genotypes of guar [Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub.] from India proves unrelated to geographical origin. And?

December 5, 2013December 5, 2013

Nibbles: Homegardens, Ancient grains, Homeless hens, Data data data, New maize, ICRISAT ambassadors, Wine microbes, India, Soil Day

Emma Cooper blogs her ethnobotanical MSc dissertation on British homegardeners and their cool crops.
If she’d done her work in Sweden, she’d have written about Ragnar Pettersson and his “treasure of Ardre.”
The downside of backyard farming: homeless hens.
International e-Conference on Germplasm Data Interoperability: Genebank Database Hell gets an e-conference. What could possibly go wrong.
Apparently there’s a new way to search for agricultural bibliografic (sic) data.
CIMMYT gets its maize out there.
ICRISAT is not one to hide its light under a bushel either.
Aussies to survey their yeasts and bacteria to improve winemaking.
The problems of India: “It takes a particular brand of incompetence and neglect for decades of stellar growth to have no apparent impact on India’s sky-high levels of under-nutrition.” I bet Dreze and Sen didn’t include a food bubble. Hey, but that can be exported.
Oh and happy World Soil Day! Thanks to it, and Jim Croft, I now know Australia has a sort of soil genebank.