Cooking

Nibbles: Australian wheat, Heirloom apple, Olive trouble, The Queen’s Mulberries, Watermelon breeding, Phancy phenotyping, Chefs & NUS, Cacao origins

Lawrence Haddad on how to start transforming the food system.
Here’s an idea: CIMMYT genebank recognized for restoring agricultural diversity in Guatemala.
And another. Cash transfers are better than more conventional interventions for malnutrition, but they have to be real money.
But, of course, they don’t always work. That’s one of many development myths listed in this fun Twitter thread.
We also need metrics, sure, but the right ones, and we may already have them.
The first ecologist remembered. That would be Humboldt.
Terrible visualizations of the changing geography of American agriculture.
But where are heirloom grown? Rice, say?
And where are all the pomegranate farmers?
I’m sure there are plenty of grape maps of France somewhere. But what’s with all these varieties? And are there more than in pomegranate?
IUCN launches a new Red List website.
Laos launches a sort of Red List website on traditional foods. Here it is. No word on linkages with Ark of Taste.
Belgian lambic beer threatened by climate change. Now it’s personal.
In Italy, the landscape needs people to keep it safe.
Even olive landscapes, which maybe need to be more promiscuous.
Early agricultural migrations fuelled by cheese.
Early eggplant migrations fuelled by elephants.
Microbes to the rescue.

Putting the polyacetylene back into carrots.
The Botanical Information and Ecology Network gets an upgrade. Any CWRs among its 18,844,855 more observations?
And any is protected areas? This will tell how well they’re managed. Mash up with this spatial database on indigenous lands?
Otherwise, there are genebanks, though not enough in Brazil, apparently.
And not always safe.
What to do with Digital Sequence Information? Would be nice to be clear on what it is.
ABS broken down by ISF. And the CGIAR. Not DSI though.
Need climate visuals? Well, who doesn’t.
The Columbian Exchange has visuals also.
And the Royal Horticultural Society too.
Speaking of Columbian Exchange: frites. And Vavilov, chefs, etc.
Speaking about nuts in PNG. Comment by Jim Croft, who would know: “Except the species illustrated is the widespread oceanic strand species, Pandanus tectorius, not the endemic highland crop ‘karuka’, Pandanus julianettii.”
5000-year-old brewery in Egypt.
14,000-year-old bread.
Fast forward 14,000 years.

Conserving heirloom rice in the Philippines.
A seed production company run by farmers.
Tapping toddy. With audio goodness.
Lots of goodness in Jeremy’s latest newsletter.
Australia gets serious about coconut conservation in the Pacific and beyond.
Australia’s own genebanks are very serious. Oh yes indeedy.
Will sweet potatoes get young people into farming in Kenya? If my nephews are anything to go by, the answer, alas, is no.
Maybe they should try mungbeans.
Or NERICA.
The Bing cherry didn’t help Ah Bing much though.
Whatever the crop, it’s total factor productivity that you have to watch for.
And then don’t forget to include whatever intervention you come up with in subject-wide evidence synthesis.
Prize for best title of the week: “Nordic cooperation on genetic resources – what’s the point?” Nice video.

Trying to promote a “poor person’s crop”? Try the garlic trick, ennobling.
A Reference Manual for Expedition Plant Collectors, courtesy of the The Arnold Arboretum.
Cornell runs a MOOC on GMOs. How about one on genebanks, eh?
Maharashtra could maybe use it.
You can never have too many mangoes.
Or dried chillies.
Next generation plant breeding.
Riverside protects its famous citrus tree.
But not all famous California trees are so lucky.
Making cotton sustainable. Hard row to hoe.
Saudi farm tourism. Even harder.