- Hell of a week in the office again, so catching up on accumulated Nibbles on a Sunday. Because we’re here to serve.
- Cynical, funny take on farmers’ markets: “No, I don’t save seeds. That’s time-consuming nonsense for backyard gardeners. Yes, I’ve heard of Monsanto. I’m a farmer. I know about goddamn Monsanto.”
- Uncynical double from the Pacific: Samoa’s agricultural show and more detail on the aroid breeding work.
- High tech breeding of solanaceous crops. Nothing like this for aroids yet, alas. Yeah, but first you have to collect the little blighters.
- On the other hand, you also need an awareness of the past. Ask the Tibetans.
- And here’s kind of an example of that involving rice in India. Compare with that first Nibble: seed saving not just for backyard gardeners after all? Convinced? Go do it, no, really. Or read Bob Zeigler; you can listen to him too. We could go back and forward on this forever. I know: let’s get some data.
- And another example involving wild not-rice in the US and Canada. Though there are some things that haven’t survived quite as well among Native Americans as those wild rice recipes.
- And speaking of ancient recipes, here’s one from another wetland, far far away from the above.
- Yeah but not all ancient recipes are so resilient, take beetles for example.
- Urban farming is big, needs to be bigger.
- Meanwhile, agricultural land is being bought up all over the place, for what it’s worth, so maybe cities will be all we have to grow stuff.
- International Cocoa Organization calls bullshit on all those chocolate-is-running-out stories.
- Maybe we should chill about wine too? I dunno, I think I’d prefer to play it safe with both. Or get help from above. Or from the Fascists.
- The banana was going extinct too, wasn’t it?
- British apples (and other trees, to be sure) are of course perennially in trouble, but help is on the way, courtesy of Kew. And not just British or apples that get help from that quarter.
- “The potato will not only survive climate change, it will help us to survive it as well.” Good news at last.
- Mapping cassava, all of a sudden an exciting new crop, if you can believe it. No stopping it now that Bill Gates has called it the world’s most interesting vegetable.
- Incidentally, he’s also decided to go totally CC-BY.
- And that’s all she wrote. For now.
Another use for taro leaves
This is a new one on me. Hanging out on Instagram, I came across this photo by Bea Misa Crisostomo, self-confessed “plant bore.”
Had never heard of fermented taro leaves made into a patty like this. Apparently “anishi” is a Nagaland delicacy, and can be made from yam leaves too. Incidentally, “gabi” seems to be the word for taro in the Philippines, rather than India, where the word “aravi” is more commonly used. But there doesn’t seem to be any doubt that anishi is an Indian dish.
Nibbles: Biological collections, ICT & food security, Pisco battles, Rabbit stew, Afghan silk, ILRI @40, Silicon Valley & livestock, Trade & deforestation, Nexus shmexus, Landscape analyzed, Native potatoes, Botanical herb garden, Plant crime, Cornbread & other indigenous foods, Climate smart ag, Caterpillar fungus, Reindeer poop virus, Rice breeder vid
- Biological collections under pressure.
- And mobile phones probably wont help. Much.
- Chilean pisco? Really?
- The end of cooking?
- Sericulture on the Silk Road.
- ILRI is 40, did we say? Not sure what they do on sericulture. No doubt somebody there will tell us. They’re social networking machines over there.
- Watch out, ILRI, Silicon Valley is coming for ya.
- One of the reasons why we need livestock research: deforestation.
- I like any article with the word nexus in the title.
- The landscape approach meta-analyzed to within an inch of its life. Bottom line: it’s the women, stupid!
- The power of the people’s potatoes.
- A secret herb garden revealed. I hope they install CCTV.
- Kana’tarokhónwe. Yep, clickbait, but worth it, trust me. And then scale the thing up.
- How to do climate-smart agriculture in Latin America and the Caribbean, country by country.
- Oh no, yet another article on that Himalayan Viagra caterpillar fungus thingy.
- Boffins resurrect 700-year-old fungus from reindeer crap.
- Indian rice breeders talk about their cool new basmati.
Nibbles: Cannabis, Brachiaria, Grasslands, Oryza, Taxonomy resources, Artocarpus, Quercus, Zea, MAS, GBIF
- “Something researchers are looking at is which cultivars, or strains, of hemp are best for the various uses — fiber, oil, nutrition, etc.” Love that etc.
- Speaking about grass: Brachiaria goes home, to wild acclaim.
- Did someone say wild? Wild grass needs help!
- Rice is a grass. Oh my yes.
- How to keep up to date with taxonomic research online.
- Pacific Regional Breadfruit Initiative gets an award.
- You can also make flour from acorns.
- And maize: what’s a grit?
- Greenpeace touts MAS.
- Next thing you know they’ll be singing the praises of Big Data. Yeah, maybe not.
Nibbles: Wonder Bread, Cassava sex, Languages and biodiversity, Wild Musa, Bronze Age musings, New Indian rice varieties, Improved breeds in Kenya, GMOs in China, Organic vision, Foreign food, Publicity, Nutrition advice & indicators, Ethiopian seed banks, Zimbabwe millet, Agroforestry, MSB legume collection, Demon paywalls, CIMMYT seed, Tempting apple
- The industrial sliced loaf as racist fantasy.
- Bill Gates talks dirty. About cassava, settle down.
- Where the wild things are is where the languages are, but why? And where are they endangered?
- This new Indian wild banana is probably a bit endangered.
- The past may be a foreign country, but they got Street View there too.
- Blockbuster rice in India. (But how energy-efficient is it?)
- And potentially blockbuster livestock breeds in Kenya.
- China goes GMO. Which of these?
- Maybe they should read this vision for organic farming? You know, just for completeness?
- Have a food adventure! Just perhaps not in China.
- FAO and National Geographic have a food security adventure together. For more stuff like this, no doubt…
- Eat more plants, and ditch the junk food. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Ok, for the more complicated, nerdy approach, there’s always fancy indicators.
- Ethiopia’s community seed banks.
- I bet there are some in Zimbabwe…
- African Development Bank makes a bet on agroforestry. Maybe health is why? There’s more that one reason…
- Gotta be strategic with your legume collecting.
- Want conservation science to translate into impact? Don’t publish behind a paywall.
- CIMMYT earns its keep.
- Build a better apple, and you won’t be able to keep the journalists away.