- Oxford Review of Economic Policy has special volume on biodiversity economics. Not much ag, though, settle down.
- ICARDA announces on Twitter the existence of a new Facebook page which looks a bit like the old one.
- It’s the fertilizer miles, stupid.
- Great British Food Revival does heirloom carrots. Oh and beer.
- Good news for a particular agricultural biodiversity subsector from Amsterdam and Colorado. The Dude unavailable for comment. For obvious reasons.
- If you’re from Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda and are doing research on Neglected and Underutilized Species you’ll be interested in this call or research proposals from ISF.
- Bioversity deconstructs that paper on the spatial analysis of Theobroma diversity. I still don’t quite get why they didn’t do the gap analysis.
- Farming from the air. And more along the same lines. Or polygons, I suppose I should say. Can you estimate diversity from the air? I bet you can.
- Sustainable intensification in (sort of) action.
- Damn rice farmers not playing ball.
- Oxford botany geeks visit Japan, identify wood of bench in noodle bar.
- 13th meeting ECPGR Steering Committee. All the documents you’ll need. And then some.
- Soybean as a vegetable. Possibly an acquired taste.
- How to keep young people on the farm? “Perhaps the first point to recognise is that the evidence base on which to build policy and programmes is frighteningly thin.”
Where is wasabi?
That Nibble yesterday about the BEGIN Japanology TV programme on roots and tubers led to some more digging around, as it were, and eventually I unearthed this gem on wasabi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qq30ya3ui4Which reminded me that one of my early posts on this blog was about Wasabia japonica. What’s strange about that old post 1 is that six years on I can’t imagine writing something like that without including a link to a WIEWS report on how many genebank accessions there are of the crop around the world. And I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing. Anyway, two, as is happens, and not where you’d think. There. I feel better now.
Nibbles: Potato/banana, European landrace project, GCARD2, Ankole in Uganda, Crowdsourcing gadgets, Cacao renewal, African food, Australian beans
- BBC pounces on CCAFS report previously trumpeted by Bioversity. Bottom line: adaptation may mean changing crops. Bottom bottom line: Will they have enough diversity?
- PGR Secure newsletter is out.
- GCARD2 rumbles on.
- The ankole cow is threatened. What, still?
- Tracking ash dieback. And since we’re talking gadgets…
- Old cacao trees being replaced in Nigeria. No word on what’s happening to the diversity they represent. Maybe it’s ex situ already? Maybe it’s not significant? I dunno, I would just like to be told.
- Slow Food documents African foods. Thankfully no ugali.
- Aussies put together cool bean collection.
Nibbles: Wasabi, Plant name checker, Finding birds, GFAR videos, Sweet potato pap, Taro genebank
- Up to their knees in wasabi. And, loving it.
- iPlant Collaborative’s Taxonomic Name Resolution Service (TNRS) ver. 3.0 expands its coverage.
- Marine bird e-Atlas goes live. Meah.
- GFAR tweets about old videos. Must be a reason for it.
- Podcast on using sweet potatoes in baby food. Might well come in useful more generally.
- My friend Valerie and former employer SPC get a namecheck in story about world’s largest taro genebank.
Nibbles: Online portals, Hops, EU craziness, Turfgrass breeder, Seed rental, Swaminatham, CG genebanks
- Do you really need that portal?
- Brits say local hops are best. And who am I to argue?
- Weird statement on genetic resources from EU Commission. Clarifications gladly received.
- Even turfgrass has its heroes.
- Want to rent some seeds?
- A reminder from someone who should know that crops have biodiversity too.
- CGIAR Consortium talks up its crown jewels.