- Host a volunteer school food gardener (in the US).
- M.S. Swaminathan’s menu for food security in India. Burp.
- Purmina Menon’s menu for food security in India takes us beyond food. Pardon me.
- Anyone for edible orchids? Anissa Helou on salep.
- Wasp flies in hot pursuit of cassava mealybugs.
- Melinda ♡ breastfeeding. The basis for sound nutrition.
- Humped conch got bigger as a result of human activities — despite being hunted. Complex.
- “Africa to become world’s breadbasket.” Makes a change from being the world’s basketcase.
Nibbles: Sustainability, Market gardens, Tomato history, Millennium Seed Bank
- What’s behind “the environmentalist’s paradox“?
- Growing vegetables in the Sahel. What could possibly go wrong?
- And for the EurekAlert trifecta: the history of the pomodoro in Italy.
- Kew Magazine looks at seeds, big time.
Nibbles: Pavlovsk, Maize, Papaver somniferum, Organics, Zulu gardens, Feasts, Female farmers, Transhumance, Dogs
- Bioversity International and UNEP jointly pile on the pressure to preserve Pavlovsk …
- … as do plant professors from University of Wisonsin.
- Mexican maize farmers using CIMMYT genebank materials to adapt their varieties. Why not in Africa, then?
- High praise for a novel on opium.
- Mat Kinase takes Time to task over lacklustre organics article.
- King Goodwill Zwelithini calls for One Home One Garden campaign to support food-growing and nutrition.
- Feasts predate agriculture. Well, yeah.
- Female farmers … a bloke writes.
- Great pic on the joys of modern transhumance.
- Resurrecting the Maize King. And why not?
- More than anyone has a right to know about dogs in the ancient world.
Nibbles: CIFOR, Weeds, Camelids, Drought, Biofortification, Buckwheat
- CIFOR has a blog!
- Nice series of videos on eating weeds.
- Video on Peru’s “Andean rodeo.” You heard me.
- Africa needs drought-tolerant maize. Ok, fair enough, but here’s my question. Shouldn’t they have done this study before doing all that breeding? Oh, who knows, maybe they did.
- “Biofortification will thus remain relevant to poor rural populations in the years to come, as their incomes will still be far too low to afford a more diversified diet.” What? Who says a diversified diet need be expensive?
- Russia faces looming buckwheat crisis. At least the genetic resources are safe in the Vavilov Institute. Unless of course somebody decides to, I don’t know, build luxury villas there, or something.
Diversity of tastes
A long article from The New Yorker last November is all about the world of artificial flavours — but it does contain a fascinating section on the diversity of citrus fruits that the taste-makers explore in search of inspiration.