Funding

May 1, 2014

Ecuador puts its money where its chocolate is

Tweets emerging from the workshop on Climate Change and the Cocoa Industry: Leveraging Science and Technology for Sustainability at the Belfer Center last night suggest that there’s something of a revolution brewing in cacao research:

#Ecuador to create world's first #cocoa and #chocolate university http://t.co/fUiNXbAFoU http://t.co/lwMp74Kewh

— Calestous Juma (@calestous) April 30, 2014

Theobroma, wild and cultivated, has played and important part in the country’s history and economic development. And the diversity of the crop has been said to be threatened, despite largish collections. So it probably does make financial sense to invest in cacao research. The devil will be in the details. One to watch.

April 19, 2014April 18, 2014

Nibbles: Mainstream MAS, ICRISAT breeding, History of hunger, Specialty crops, Biofortification, Collectivizing smallholders, Fake seeds, Good seeds, Maize diversity, Making palm oil, Space ag, Cacao and CC, Cassava and CC, Cherry phenology, CC adaptation, Flavour gene, Indian apples, GBIF data, EU force feeding petition, BRITE, Sir Hans Sloane, Silk Road, Banana realism

Round-up of stuff that’s been accumulating over past few days because we were busy putting food on the table.
Marker assisted selection of tomatoes makes it to Washington Post. When will African crops do the same?
“The history of humanity is a history of hunger.” Maybe MAS of African crops will help.
USDA money for minor crops. Including African crops?
Nigerian minister of agriculture on biofortification. Of African crops.
African smallholders need to get together. They have nothing to lose but their chains. And their fake seeds. Which is not a problem for their Central American brethren.
Someone mention Central America? Listen to a talk on maize diversity therein. And at the other end of the region’s diversity spectrum: oil palm.
NASA wants to grown stuff in space. Organically, of course. African smallholders nonplussed.
In space, nobody can hear you riot over food prices.
Saving cacao from climate change: The colloquium. We’ve had cassava. Cherries next?
Hold everything: there’s a framework for this business of crop diversity and climate change.
Deconstructing strawberry flavour. Apples next? Not sure Indian farmers will care much.
GBIF wants you to tell them how your data should be licensed. And some background.
You can lobby the EU on fois gras. If that’s your thing.
If you’re in Vancouver on May 6, you can celebrate five years of the Biodiversity Research: Integrative Training and Education (BRITE) Internship Program.
You can also intern at Globefish, which links global fish-trade information networks comprising 85 countries.
Great Great Lives podcast on Sir Hans Sloane, whose connections with agricultural biodiversity are multiple.
Something else whose connections with agrobiodiversity are many, though this could have been highlighted more in the article in question: the Silk Road.
What’s the late Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s connection to crop diversity?

April 7, 2014

Nibbles: Intensification, Wheat, Bees crisis

Liberation: Proof, if proof were needed, that what you really need to snaffle EU funding is an acronym.
Not just yields but nutritional value of staple crop threatened by climate change.
Bee crisis still bad news for agriculture.
Bee crisis still good news for researchers.

March 11, 2014

Nibbles: Mango, Money, Holy guacamole

“Top 8 Wonderful Things You Can Do With A Mango.” Kenyan clickbait. I bought it.
“Third Call for Project Proposals under the Treaty’s Benefit-sharing Fund.” Seed Treaty clickbait. I’m not qualified.
“Guacapocalypse” — a headline to reckon with. Here’s the back story to climate change and avocados.

January 20, 2014January 20, 2014

Nibbles: ICRISAT award, CGIAR funding, Chinese medicine, Gut bacteria, Bee research, Sri Lankan law, Wolf Prize, Field Guides, Tapa exhibition, GFFA2014

Today in dodgy journalism, part 1: ICRISAT gets a new mandate crop? What was the picture editor thinking. And smoking.
Today in dodgy journalism, part 2: Two typos in the obsolete name of the CGIAR.
Dissecting Chinese traditional medicine. Or would that be puncturing?
Hunter gatherers have special gut bacteria.
Bees: “That’s the beauty of the research. Because we’re still short on info, everything’s worth knowing about.”
Maple syrup tasting. Nice gig if you can get it.
Activist objects to proposed new seed law in Sri Lanka.
UC Davis wheat geneticist Jorge Dubcovsky wins 2014 Wolf Prize in Agriculture. Congrats.
Sandy Knapp on what she does all day.
The future of field guides. Yes, they have one.
Tapa cloth, in Cologne of all places. Don’t think there were any from Palau, though.
Abschlusskommuniqué of the Global Forum on Food and Agriculture 2014 supports conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity. Phew.