- Lethal Yellowing doing for coconuts — and livelihoods — in Mozambique. And typhoons in the Philippines.
- Potted history of maize hybrids from 1998.
- Unusual rice and tomato species sequenced.
- The challenges of measuring the impact of nutrition interventions.
- Old interview with Michael Pollan on biodiversity and health resurfaces, maybe to coincide with the above.
- What will be the nutrition impact of replacing matooke with cassava, I wonder? Maybe if it was yellow cassava it would be ok?
- Maybe Shamba Shapeup will tell us.
- Well, there’s always wine. Even in Ethiopia.
- Or insects. Or roiboos. If you’re in South Africa.
- Chinese dumplings responsible for climate change.
- New Scoop.it page on downy mildews.
- And new Flipboard section on quinoa. And something to add to it.
- Eid Mubarak! Celebrate with mango kunafa.
- But which variety?
Nibbles: Pig genes, Eating pork, Mesoamerican crops, Apple family farming, Global food security, Wild food in Europe, Student crop videos, Important plants, Teff, Finger millet, Pacific NW grains, African veggies, Genius mangoes
- Asian genes in European pigs are a good thing.
- How about American pigs though?
- Great Spanish language cacao infographic. And more along the same lines.
- Innovative apple family farming in the Tyrol.
- Not sure that will be much use in terms of global food security, as per this recent review, but you never know. Because, you know, climate change?
- Well, there’s always wild food. Though in some places more than others.
- Student videos on the origin of food plants.
- But did any of them change their lives?
- Oxfam thinks teff can change lives.
- Different part of same continent, different grain to revitalize.
- Different continent, different grains to revitalize.
- Bah, who needs cereals when you have indigenous vegetables?
- Wait, what? Seedless mangoes? Why is this not first-page news?
Nibbles: Custodian farmers, Farming wild species, Museum of Agriculture, GMO maize in Mexico, Organic metareview, Boron tolerance, Date tomato, Cultivated Plant Taxonomy Newsletter, Barcoding Welsh honey
- First, find your custodian farmers.
- Sure, they can farm wild species too.
- Then, get them to produce something cool, sell it, and use the money to preserve some nearby temples.
- Oh yeah, but better make sure there’s no GMOs around.
- Organic helps. No, really.
- Ok, so maybe you have to help them out by breeding for higher boron tolerance or something.
- Something like tomatoes that don’t rot. And in French, but with photo.
- Make sure the taxonomy is right, though.
- And if in doubt, use barcoding.
Nibbles: Millet festival, Seed eBay, Fonio frenzy, Kenya mangoes, Barbed wire, Potato diversity, Peruvian cuisine, Feeding Haiti, Shea paradox, Prosopis review, Nigerian genebank, COGENT meeting, IRRI genebank, Big Data on diseases, Genomics at UBham
- There’s a millet festival in Chennai on 20 July. Any of our readers planning to go?
- “…the first ever, non-profit “eBay” of seed…” And you can contribute, if you like. With money, that is. I wonder if there will be a festival at some point.
- Fonio gets the Mail treatment (but no festival). Will it ever recover? Maybe this will help. For the record, it may have been the The Guardian that started this fonio frenzy. Anyway, here are the collections, if you think you’d like to contribute to the revolution. Like by organizing a festival. But why stop at fonio…
- Sometimes, however, exotic is better: like mango in Kenya. There’s plenty of mango festivals (and a new genebank too) in India, but not in Kenya, as far as I know.
- BBC radio programme on the history of barbed wire. Fascinating.
- Not to be outdone, DW on potato agrobiodiversity, including the CIP genebank. Wow, in Spanish too. Ah, but do any of them have high levels of B-9 vitamin? No? I know someone who can change that.
- More to Peruvian cuisine than potatoes, though. I feel a festival coming on.
- Food aid vs agriculture in Haiti. Nothing to celebrate there.
- Someone mention hard choices? Shea harvesting in Ghana presents a conundrum too.
- What can I tell you about Prosopis? Some are good, others not so much.
- I guess the same could be said for Solanums.
- Around the world in 20 food photos. No festivals? Well, I think Ramadan qualifies.
- “I have told you that NACGRAB would have been in a mess without the support of WAAPP.” Head of Nigerian genebank tells the world like it is.
- Coconut genebank managers tell each other like it is.
- Rice genebank makes an impression, visitor tells the world.
- I suppose we should have at least one Big Data thing, right? Make that two. But that’s all you get.
- Ok, then, one last one: diseases, genomics and, of course, football.
Nibbles: Tree drought tolerance, Whisky history, Barley drought tolerance, Old veggies, Old potatoes, Llamas vs goats, Sustainable ag, Chinese herbaria
- Drought tolerance? It’s the carbs.
- Whisky 101.
- Coincidental mashup of the above. Barley used in whisky production provides clue to drought tolerance.
- Pre-hispanic veggies.
- Pre-hispanic carbs.
- Pre-hispanic livestock.
- Sustainable agriculture deconstructed.
- GBIF scores Chinese specimens.