- The story of the potato in Poland.
- The story of one man’s obsession with the pear.
- Nice extract from Eating to Extinction by Dan Saladino. Get the whole book to get the full story!
- Free version of the classic Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions by Philip McMichael. The story? “Revaluing of food system diversity, and public and planetary health, reformulates the current agrarian question, rejecting food regime capital-centrism.”
Fruit portraits
Masumi Shiohara was born in Nagano Prefecture in 1974. He worked as a development engineer at a microfabrication manufacturer. After leaving the company, he took over his family’s orchard from his parents, and is now running the farm. He is also involved in breeding and has developed a number of varieties.
He also takes amazing photos to record the characteristics of the different varieties he grows.
When filing a plant patent application, we keep records to identify each of the varieties and to compare those with other similar varieties. A collection of these records is called a characteristic table. As a fruit farmer and breeder, I continue to use photographic techniques to illustrate all of the important items in the trait table in a single piece of work. My photographs become a form of botanical art.
Art indeed. For a more mundane approach to varietal identification, however, check out these resources on Orchard Notes.
Nibbles: Food residues, Medieval wine, Phoenician wine
- Useful roundup of the application of modern analytical techniques to archaeological food residues.
- Medieval “greek wine” was not greek wine. No modern analytical techniques used.
- Phoenicians traded wine. Some modern analytical techniques used.
Nibbles: Genebanks in Brazil, Tunisia, Ghana, Ethiopia, Goan rice, Wheat adoption, Peruvian hot peppers & cacao, Amazonian fruits and nuts, Dates, Great Hedge of India, Conservation genetics presentation
- Safety duplicating a chickpea collection.
- Tunisia’s genebank in the news.
- Ghana’s genebank trying to save taro.
- Using a genebank to improve Elephant grass.
- On-farm conservation of rice in Goa.
- Molecular tools show that a couple of varieties account for about half the wheat acreage in Bangladesh and Nepal. Hope all the landraces are in genebanks, and safety duplicated.
- Celebrating Peruvian pepper diversity.
- Peru’s cacao diversity doesn’t need help, apparently.
- However, the Amazon’s wild-extracted fruits (including cacao and a wild relative) could be in trouble. Hope they’re in genebanks, just in case.
- How the date came to the US. Including its genebanks.
- India had a precursor of the Green Wall of Africa but nobody remembers it. Glad it wasn’t used as a genebank of sorts.
- Conservation genetics (i.e., most of the above) explained in 48 slides.
Nibbles: Missouri wine, Ancient Chinese beer, UNFSS, Biodiversity & agriculture & diets, Container genebank
- Missouri has been important to wine. Very important.
- And China to beer.
- 7 things that are important for future food systems. Spoiler alert: diversity underpins all 7.
- Why biodiversity is important to diets. And vice versa.
- Why biodiversity is important to agriculture. And vice versa.
- No worries, now anyone can have a genebank.