- “Its flavor is like the saliva generously exchanged by lovers in kissing.” Yum!
- ECOWAS Nutrition Forum continues to sell “multi-sectoral approach to tackling under-nutrition” in West Africa.
- Six new varieties of wheat in Oman! Splitters rule.
- US scientists urged Russians to save Pavlovsk. Lotta continua.
- And here’s the Russian Housing Development Foundation’s take on the expert report. Lotta continua sempre.
- COPs may come and COPs may go — but will we be ready for the Peasant Olympics in 2012? h/t Miss Hathorn.
- Phosphates in China: waste ’em while you can?
- Book: Conservation agriculture and sustainable crop intensification in Lesotho.
- Australian almond variety not performing this year.
Nibbles: Tokyo, Biofuels, Genebank conference, Forestry, Pinus, Hunger, Moringa
- Urban agriculture in Tokyo makes no financial sense. So what?
- Growing biofuels in Andhra Pradesh may make financial sense. Sow what?
- EUCARPIA conference. To Serve and Conserve: genebanks exploring ways to improve service to PGR users and effectiveness of PGR conservation. April 2011.
- Recovering Ethiopia’s forests.
- The wrong kind of pine-nut diversity.
- “We can halve hunger.” IFPRI Director General says how.
- Optimising use of Moringa to purify water.
Nibbles: Yams, Agrobiodiversity, Melons, Cacao, Biotropica, Food, Seed saving, Rice pix, Mongolian livestock, Gums
- IITA set to expand its ability to provide the world with yam diversity.
- “Agricultural biodiversity is essential for farmers as it places them in a better position to manage climate change.” Wait, what?
- An exotic melon is found in Birmingham, UK. But can you make juice from its seeds?
- James dissects the latest genome announcement: cacao. Ignore the press release, just read this.
- Biotropica has a special issue on biodiversity. Even some agrobiodiversity.
- The history of food consumption in the 20th century. Scary reading.
- New Internationalist magazine has a special issue on seed saving! But only a couple of articles available online, alas.
- Wonderful photos of the rice harvest from Flickr.
- Mongolian cashmere can only get more expensive.
- Australians have more to cope with than a back-stabbing prime minister, it seems. Their eucalypts are in trouble. Something to do with fire, maybe.
10 of Europe’s best under-the-radar food festivals
Last Sunday’s Observer magazine listed 10 food festivals across Europe. As ever, if you go, we’ll be happy to publish a report. Personally, the Fête des Legumes Oubliés would be my preference. But then there’s the Festa della Zucca, closer to home, and the Piment d’Espelette Festival in France, which we’ve blogged about before. The one I really want to go to, not mentioned by The Observer, is the Fiesta de la Alubia in Tolosa. I can’t find much about it now, but I vividly remember from my most recent trip to Gipuzkoa the potential of being inducted as a Knight of the Alubia. That appeals. As do the beans, among the finest known to humanity.
Nibbles: Heirloom Auction, Flatulence, Trade, Swaziland, Turkey genome, Sorghum
- The Art of Farming: How to fund heirloom veggies, NYC black-tie style.
- Oregano to save the planet from bovine emissions.
- Kew blogs “strange articles of trade“, all examples of agricultural biodiversity. How about them worms?
- Swazi farmer breaks with grazing tradition to adapt to climate change.
- Another day, another DNA “sequence”. The turkey.
- Overselling popped sorghum? On YouTube.