Cooking

Nibbles: Book, Nutrition, Etrogs, Horse in ancient Israel, Ocean access, Climate change, Mexican smallholders, Fruitpedia, Root crops meeting, Bayer wheat breeding, Old seeds, Viking barley, Cattle rock art, Safe meat & milk

1.24 kg of book about Biodiversity in Agriculture.
Everybody’s already linked to The Economist on The Nutrition Puzzle but we’re not proud.
And lots of people have linked to the biblical garden story; we’re proud to point out that one of the plants was a culturally important cultivated citrus.
And while we’re in biblical mood, here’s a culturally important animal to go with that citrus.
Biopirates plundering the oceans’ genetic resources must be stopped with international agreements, ‘cos that’ll work.
Big session on Food security, climate change and climate variability at big scientific meeting. Eventually we’ll hear more.
As when UK Chief Scientist tells Voice of America about agriculture and climate change.
Small farmers in Mexico are making a difference to agrobiodiversity and politics.
Fruitipedia! 433 fruits and counting.
16th Triennial Symposium of International Society for Tropical Root Crops in the works.
Bayer CropScience buys into the Texas A&M University wheat genebank?
Seeds survive in the permafrost. Good news for Svalbard.
Seeds don’t survive in the permafrost. Bad news for Vikings?
The connection between the the engravings found on ancient graves and current cattle brands in the same general area. Turkana, that is. Not much is the answer. Pity.
And how did they make all that meat and milk safe for use, I hear you ask.

Higher maize yields? Plant cover crops between the rows.
Barley tempeh! My kind of food exploration.
Danny Hunter impresses Irish Times with need to conserve biodiversity.
UK devotes millions to research for “bigger yields of better quality fruits and vegetables”.
Germans embrace high-tech urban agriculture — cautiously.
Put farmers’ markets near medical centres for added benefits. What happens when everyone’s so healthy they don’t need the doctor?

Banana boffins at each others’ throats over alleged new species. Great spectator sport.
What does a Musa voucher specimen look like, I wonder.
Fancy shmanzy Bangkok restaurant links up with heirloom seedbank.
Aroid network working really hard.
Marker-assisted selection: a biotechnology we can all get behind. Can’t we?
Conservation in Sierra Leone. No agrobiodiversity, natch.

Want to teach about agrobiodiversity? Help is at hand.
Want to learn about agrobiodiversity? Stay here.
Want to know what’s going on in biodiversity conservation at Cambridge? Here’s how. Tell us if agriculture gets a look-in. If it doesn’t, come back here. But I bet there’ll be something about landscapes.
What is a landscape? “The answer … differs tremendously depending on the respondent,” it says here. Wow, those Cambridge boffins will be so shocked.
Want to know about the plants in that landscape whose definition is so much in the hands of respondents? Most were discovered by just a few botanical superstars. But how many women?
And if that landscape is Turkish and there are (is?) livestock in it, this is what you’ll see.
Want to tour the world’s top evolution sites? Here’s the first stop. Now, how about crop evolution (and domestication, natch) sites. Like some livestock- and crop-wild-relative-discovered-by-a-botanical-superstar-filled Turkish landscape, perhaps.
Or what about sites connected with food production and marketing more generally, for that matter. No, that list would be too long. Interesting, but too long. Would need to prioritize ruthlessly.
One thing for certain, though, it should include a couple of community genebanks.
Where it is not inconceivable that seeds would be protected following age-old practices. Which may or may not be taught in fancy courses.
Oh, and beer.