- Coffee: The World in Your Cup exhibit. I found it at Grist.
- Making beer with less water. At last a worthy use for germplasm collections.
- Rare Breeds Survival Trust take over sheep semen archive. Ah, those fun-loving Brits!.
- Illinois, 1937: farm diary in twitter form.
- Have chocolate, will travel.
- February 2, 1659: “…today, praise be to God, wine was pressed for the first time from Cape grapes.”
- Neanderthals hung out with — and hung on thanks to — biodiversity.
- Yield is not enough.
Nibbles: Cheese, Seed squared, Nutrition journal, Wild boar, Bees, Local breeds, Pest, Wild goat
- Mozzarella madness.
- Homegrown Evolutionist spreads his seed.
- There’s an International Seed Swap Day of Action? And we missed it?
- The new AJFAND is out.
- Brits belatedly bring back boars, but bumble bee buggered.
- Improving local livestock breeds in Zambia: VOA tells us how and why.
- Not armyworm after all.
- Cloning the ibex: close, but no cigar.
Confusion at New Scientist
The New Scientist’s blogger manages to confuse the Svalbard Global Seed Vault with the Millennium Seed Bank. I guess it was inevitable.
LATER: No, it wasn’t me that left that first, rude comment! And I’m offended that you think it might have been.
Nibbles: China, Coconut, Sheep, Water, Plums, Kew
- “These young people can’t farm.”
- Let the people tap!
- Wolf sighted in Massif Central. France surrenders.
- Fascinating discussion of how much water farmers “use”.
- “Blueberries have some stiff competition”. From plums.
- Millennium Seed Bank hit by credit crunch.
Seed Systems and Agrobiodiversity: The Book
The Dutch ambassador to Ethiopia in his opening speech stressed that a well functioning seed system is crucial for improving food security, increasing agricultural export, and conserving agrobiodiversity.
That’s one enlightened ambassador. He was launching a book, which you can download in its entirety: Farmers, seeds and varieties. Supporting informal seed supply in Ethiopia, edited by Thijssen, M.H., Zewdie Bishaw, Abdurahman Beshir, Walter S. de Boef.