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As Jerry Seinfeld famously once said, I’m getting a little backed up here. Travel and work and, well, life, have conspired to keep me away from Nibbling for the past week and more, so apologies if what follows proves a little difficult to digest.
- 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.
Nibbles: ICRAF meet, Genome meet, Websites redux, Breadfruit video, Livestock project, Data, Kansas wheat, Chief scientists pontificate, Medieval melons, Peruvian foodiness, Whiskey
- ICRAF are having their Science Week. Follow it on Twitter. And let us know if you’re there and want to write about anything agrobiodiversity related that comes up.
- Plant Genome Evolution 2013 has been and gone, alas, but Chris Pires has storified the whole thing, pretty much. Lots of crops in there. But it’s disappeared now, of course.
- Bioversity and FAO redesign their websites. Tell them what you think.
- Diane Ragone talks breadfruit. With video goodness.
- Aussie researcher talks about landing Gates grant to improve African livestock. Hopefully some conservation in there somewhere.
- Decentralizing data: to empower communities; and to empower geeks.
- Data, you said? Here’s data on why Kansas needs wheat breeders.
- The world’s chief agriculture scientists want to share genetic resources. Good of them.
- Europe used to have more melons.
- Enough with the Peruvian superfoods meme, please.
- I may have said this before, but it’s still valid: I need a drink.
Gates Foundation strait-jackets African agricultural research
Taking a leaf from the EU’s book, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is offering us a PEARL. That’s the Program for Emerging Agricultural Research Leaders. Tremendous idea, to train and empower younger scientists, specifically “African scientist[s] residing in sub-Saharan Africa or planning to relocate to sub-Saharan Africa to implement the proposed project”.
With this call, we are looking for projects led by MSc and PhD scientists at national agricultural research institutions and universities in sub-Saharan Africa, working in collaboration with other researchers internationally (either within Africa or beyond the continent).
There’s up to US$500,000 available for each project, and you still have until 30 September to get your pre-proposal in. But don’t think you can work on any old thing. No sirree. There are “Exclusionary criteria,” for example no “[i]mprovements to current regulated chemicals or the development of new chemical formulations that would be considered regulated chemicals”. And no (or not much) agricultural biodiversity:
We will NOT consider funding for:
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Proposals that are not applicable to one or more of the following crop and livestock species: maize, wheat, rice, millet, sorghum, cassava, sweet potatoes, yams, beans, cowpeas, chickpeas, groundnuts, banana, chickens, small ruminants (e.g. goats), and cattle;
No idea what order those are in; possibly their importance in the BMGF pantheon. But if you wanted to work on, say, bambara groundnuts, leafy greens, cavies, baobab, fonio, cane rats, cocoyam, tef etc., etc., etc you’re out of luck.
You obviously have nothing to contribute to whether “three-quarters of the world’s poorest people” have enough to eat, are able to send their children to school, and can earn any money to save and lead healthy and productive lives.
Too bad.
Nibbles: Kenyan millet, Nutritious fruits, Homegardens, Schools, CIAT genebank funding
- Millet helps sends Kenyan to college. Which millet though?
- Some fruits, but not juice, good against diabetes. Coconut not included, alas. Nor bananas, for all their recently revised taxonomic goodness.
- Which both seem as good reasons as any to grown your own.
- And teach about them in schools.
- And conserve them in genebanks. Ok, this piece from CIAT is about neither millets nor fruits, but it’s friday, gimme a break.
Nibbles: Golden Rice vs kitchen gardens, China vs world, Cool fungi, Measuring nutrition outcomes, Ancient pig keeping, Mapping potatoes, Plant evolution, Supporting genebanks
- Golden Rice better than kitchen gardens? We just don’t have the data. But why is that?
- Brazil and China compete for African agriculture. Are either of them at this African food security conference? Meanwhile, Australia vs China in the Pacific. Are either of them contributing to this ecosystem management survey? Oh, what could possibly go wrong?
- The “beauty” of mycorrhiza. And more cool fungi.
- World Bank says it is possible to measure nutritional outcomes in children without breaking the bank.
- It wasn’t just ancient farmers who kept pigs.
- CIP uses GIS shock.
- Darwin’s abominable mystery sorted out. Oh, and cereal vernalization to boot.
- Nabhan: The U.S. government should direct more money to the country’s “underfinanced seed collection and distribution programs.”