I’ve been catching up on the BBC’s Food Programme by way of its handy podcasts, and, amid a certain amount of fare that, it must be said, can perhaps most charitably be described as filling, there have been some undoubted gourmet morsels. ((Some of which have even won awards.)) I was particularly struck by how, for chocolate, beer and gin (and others, for all I know), the past few years have seen an explosion of small manufacturers and tiny niche products, especially in the US. That famous Long Tail at work, I guess. The other common thread is an increase in consumption of such relative luxury goods in the developing world. Quite a combination, but what’s not clear to me is the kind of dent the financial crisis has put into these trends. Nor, of rather more direct interest, do I know the exact geographic location where one might expect to benefit maximally from them. But I suspect the masher-uppers are working on that.
Nibbles: GIBF, Identifiers, Farming animals, Geomedicine, Seed saving, Seeds of Success, CWRs, CORA 2012, Sourdough culture bank, Phenology, Wild Coffea, Cassava conference, Condiments, Gulf truffles, Cashew nut, Home gardens, Tea, Bacterial diversity
- GIBF taxonomy is broken. We’re doomed. No, but it can be fixed. Phew.
- Maybe start with a unique identifier for taxonomists? Followed by one for genebank accessions… Yeah. Right.
- Domesticating animals won’t save them. And more on the commodification of wildlife. Is that even a word?
- Geomedicine is here. Can geonutrition be far behind? We’re going to need better maps, though.
- Saving heirlooms, one bright student at a time.
- “Botanists Make Much Use of Time.” If you can get beyond the title, there’s another, quite different, but again quite nice, seed saving story on page 3.
- “Why aren’t these plants the poster children [for plant conservation]?” You tell me.
- Or, instead of doing something about it, as above, we could have a week of Collective Rice Action 2012.
- You can park your sourdough here, sir.
- How Thoreau is helping boffins monitor phenology. But there’s another way too.
- “She drinks coffee. She farms coffee. She studies coffee.” Wild coffee.
- Massive meet on the Rambo Root. Very soon, in Uganda.
- Ketchup is from China? Riiiight. Whatever, who cares, we have the genome!
- And in other news, there are truffles in Qatar. But maybe not for long.
- The weirdness of cashews.
- The normalcy of home gardens as a source of food security — in Indonesia.
- Ok, then, the weirdness of oolong tea.
- Aha, gotcha, the normalcy of office bacterial floras! Eh? No, wait…
Nibbles: Banana networking, Belgian flora, On farm breeding course, International collaboration, Wheat pre-breeding, Dog evolution
- ProMusa goes all social.
- Belgian flora goes online.
- Plant breeding goes to the people.
- FAO and ICARDA go together.
- Brits go all in on wheat pre-breeding.
- Modern dog breeds don’t go all the way back to the grey wolf.
Brainfood: Bee diversity, Fodder innovation, African agrobiodiversity, Quinoa economy, Fragmentation and diversity, Rice in Madagascar, Rice in Thailand
- Management increases genetic diversity of honey bees via admixture. No domestication bottleneck there!
- Enhancing innovation in livestock value chains through networks: Lessons from fodder innovation case studies in developing countries. Fodder innovators of the world, organize. If you don’t, you will lose your value chains.
- Introduction to special issue on agricultural biodiversity, ecosystems and environment linkages in Africa. Special issues? What special issue?
- The construction of an alternative quinoa economy: balancing solidarity, household needs, and profit in San Agustín, Bolivia. Despite the allure of fancy denominations of origin and the like, old-fashioned cooperatives, and the much-maligned intermediary, manage to hang on in there.
- Species–genetic diversity correlations in habitat fragmentation can be biased by small sample sizes. Can.
- The original features of rice (Oryza sativa L.) genetic diversity and the importance of within-variety diversity in the highlands of Madagascar build a strong case for in situ conservation. Actually the way I read it, the stronger case is for ex situ. But see what you think.
- Population structure of the primary gene pool of Oryza sativa in Thailand. In situ Strikes Back.
Nibbles: Tomatoes, CATIE, Community seed bank, Law, Dairy breeding, Indian probiotics
- Ruth deconstructs her local tomatoes.
- New Mexico State University reaches out to CATIE’s genebank.
- Montana gets a genebank.
- Long Cymie Payne UBerkeley lecture on international law and biodiversity.
- Milking the data.
- Speaking of milk, indigenous lassi probiotics isolated, sequenced and deposited in genebank.