Cooking

December 2, 2013

Food globalization under Mowbray’s Cupola

One of the highlights of my recent trip to India was dinner with Prof. Swaminathan and some of his colleagues at the Madras Club. That’s me under the club’s famed 18th century cupola. The Madras Club is reputed to be the birthplace of mulligatawny soup, so I was planning a post showing how this quintessentially Indian concoction illustrates global interdependence in food products, complete with map of the worldwide origin of the ingredients. A map like this.

But it was Italian night, and I had minestrone.

November 27, 2013November 27, 2013

Nibbles: Papaya relatives, Agrobiodiversity monitoring, Orange breeding, Corn mutant, Cashew processing, Pecan pie, Communications history, Wheat research video, Agroforestry, Breeding, AG research in USA, Philippines typhoon, Eating insects, Indian blog, Open data, Microbes & wine, European databases, Afro-Indian Millet Alliance

The closest relative of the papaya looks nothing like a papaya. But will it be monitored, along with the rest of agrobiodiversity?
We might have to look further afield than near relatives to save the orange. But closer to save corn.
Cashews are bad? Say it ain’t so. And as for pecans…
CGIAR comms guys (and it is all guys) reminisce about the good old days of agricultural research. And here’s an example, using wheat, of what they’re up to now. Nice shoutout for breeding and genebanks. Though of course it’s not just about the breeding.
Crop improvement is one of six ways of feeding the world. Just. CGIAR comms guys probably on it. Barbara Schaal certainly is.
IRRI maps rice areas affected by the recent typhoon. I did ask, and farmers there apparently mostly grow modern varieties. FAO provides more context.
More insectivorous hijinks.
Great new blog on chai wallahs.
Big, open ag data will save us all. That sound you hear is the zeitgeist catching up. And the CGIAR is on it.
You say terroir, I say microbes.
Report on a descent into Genebank Database Hell, European Chapter. Ah, but it’s open.
India reaches out to Africa, millets in hand.

November 7, 2013November 7, 2013

Nibbles: Fungi, Beer, Cupuaçu, Tearless onions, Melaleuca, Tomatillo, Seed takeover, Katy Perry’s seeds, Bruges fries, EU ag

They got an awful lot of fungi in Norwegian wood.
Waiter, there’s a mushroom in my beer.
Kew seed scientist discovers the taste of the Amazon.
That “tearless onion” is good for the heart story? The article is behind a paywall, so I don’t know how the boffins suppressed lachrymatory factor synthase. And frankly, I don’t really care.
A new guide to Melaleuca species. Be still my beating heart.
The world’s oldest tomatillo clocks in at 52.2 million years.
French seed company Vilmorin buys 25% of Zimbabwe’s Seed Co. Ltd. What could possibly go wrong?
“Katy Perry’s latest album, Prism, is Number One in Australia, but that hasn’t stopped the country from declaring it a potential biohazard.” Can anyone explain the significance of this story? Or who Katy Perry is?
On the whole, I’d rather be at the frites museum in Bruges.
“Clearly, when it comes to agriculture, productivity matters.” Here comes the science.

November 4, 2013October 2, 2013

Brainfood: Pollinator communities, Supply chains and deforestation, Restoration in cities and connected landscapes, Forages in China, Forages in Australia, Indian eggplant minerals, Mediterranean eggplant, Carpathian agrotourism, Nordic apples, Hungarian grape, Saline SP

Landscape heterogeneity and farming practice alter the species composition and taxonomic breadth of pollinator communities. Pollinator species richness decreases along with landscape heterogeneity, but different taxonomic groups do different things, so you have to consider composition.
Enhancing the sustainability of commodity supply chains in tropical forest and agricultural landscapes. You got your institutions, policies, incentives, information and technologies, and now you’ve got a framework to work out how they can combine to produce the desired outcome of less deforestation from the production of agricultural commodities like beef, cocoa, palm oil, rubber and soybean. That’s the theory done, now on with the practice. Which basically comes down to governance.
Urban Grassland Restoration: A Neglected Opportunity for Biodiversity Conservation. Beyond green roofs. Rooves?
A Framework to Optimize Biodiversity Restoration Efforts Based on Habitat Amount and Landscape Connectivity. I guess we should apply this to the above? It’s the lack of connectivity that’s gonna kill ya in those urban landscapes.
Research Progress of Forage Germplasm Resources Innovation in China. Among other things, that progress came with “ion beam implantation” and “spaceship-carried”, which really makes me want to read beyond the abstract, which however would require knowledge of Chinese. If there’s anyone out there who can explain the spaceship, I’d be thrilled.
Pasture legumes in Queensland: a new wave? Maybe, but if so very much on the cheap. No spaceships in Oz.
Mineral composition and their genetic variability analysis in eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) germplasm. 2 out of 32 Indian genebank accessions were good for wide range of minerals.
The Population Structure and Diversity of Eggplant from Asia and the Mediterranean Basin. An eastern and a western genepool according to SSRs, and 3 parallel morphological groups in each of these. No word on their mineral content.
Green economy and agri-rural tourism. Marketing local eco-bio-products are the way forward for the Carpathians. Would pay money to see that.
Genetic diversity in Swedish and Finnish heirloom apple cultivars revealed with SSR markers. The Finnish ones are weird.
Morphological and molecular characterization of varieties and selected clones of ‘Kadarka’ grape. Formerly the widest grown red wine cultivar in Hungary, and a total nomenclatural mess.
Using salt-tolerant sweet potato varieties in Than Hoa Province, Vietnam. Ok, maybe not peer-reviewed, but interesting as hell. From 530 genebank accessions to 2 promising cultivars, via lab and field trials.

October 10, 2013October 10, 2013

Nibbles: ITK book, Golden Rice, Indian census, School meals, Camels, Fermentation, CC comms, Eel aquaculture

The Guide for the Perplexed Entering the Maze of Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore. Great title.
IRRI DG blogs about Golden Rice on World Sight Day. In other news, there’s a World Sight Day.
Indian farmers ever more marginal.
If they were in Africa, they’d be producing nutritious school meals.
Book on camel biodiversity.
Turns out Jeremy is part of a movement that he apparently didn’t even know existed.
Are you involved in the UNFCCC agriculture negotiations? You’ll need this handy communications tool-kit. Agricultural biodiversity is in there somewhere.
Not sure that eels are, but maybe they should be.