- 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.
Nibbles: Global Nutrition Report, Neanderthal veggies, Azolla genome, Evergreen Garrity, Breadfruit tease, Apios & other perennials, Guelph U genebank, Camel trouble, ICRISAT transitions, American beer
- Crowdsourcing the Global Nutrition Report.
- Which will not cover the Neanderthals.
- Azolla genome project meets crowdfunding target, gets love from BGI.
- Would that contribute to Evergreen Agriculture?
- I bet breadfruit would, but New Scientist has put an article about that interesting tree behind a paywall. But, see this teaser…
- Some people think the potato bean will.
- Another genebank in Canada. Not crops, though, I suspect.
- Saving the camel in Rajasthan.
- ICRISAT gets a new DG.
- Podcast on the history of American beer. Perfect note on which to wish you all a good rest of the weekend.
Nibbles: Colombian chocolate, Urban ag, Subaks, GM debate, Taxonomy online, Genebank tools online, BBC on Kew, Australian seed bank, Cedar of Lebanon, Pizza philosophy, Feijoada
- Move over Juan Valdez. Cacao farmers want to emulate a marketing icon.
- Urban agriculture not all it’s cracked up to be. Living up to that urban ag icon, Cuba, is hard.
- Bali’s iconic, traditional subaks are a complex adaptive system, and much better than modern rice farming alternatives. Makes you wonder why they need protecting, though.
- GM bananas will save us. Not by themselves they wont. I don’t know why I keep linking to this stuff. Nothing at all iconic about it.
- Iconic taxonomic revision tools online.
- Something else that’s online is a bunch of tools for analyzing genebank data. Soon to be iconic, no doubt. As soon as people use them. So get cracking.
- Huge BBC documentary on Kew coming up. I bet the iconic Millennium Seed Bank will feature.
- Speaking of iconic genebank buildings, today’s one comes from Australia.
- The history of an iconic Middle Easter tree?
- The philosophy of an iconic Italian delicacy. Well, Neapolitan, really.
- And in honour of the World Cup (I refuse to put FIFA in front, let them sue me), an iconic Brazilian dish. And don’t worry, those beans are safe. Somewhere iconic.
Nibbles: Neolithic farmers, Minoan DNA, Cretan food, Olive history book, Organic dreams, Fairtrade experiment, Value chains, Jamaican breadfruit exports, Climate smart successes
- Neolithic farmers spread into Europe by sea.
- And it looks like the ones who got to Crete eventually gave rise to the Minoans.
- And ate food not unlike what Cretans ate up to a hundred years ago.
- Well of course the olive is important to all that.
- Ten thousand years later, we find that organic is an impossible dream.
- And Fairtrade may or may not work.
- But value chains will make you free. Although that’s easier said than done.
- And you have to be climate-smart to boot. Really, who’d be a farmer, in the Neolithic or now.