Nibbles: Tea nomenclature, Medicinal plants, Robert Fortune, Gender gap, Japanese women farmers, AnGR conservation, Herbarium databases, India & Africa

  • Tea diversity 101.
  • Tea is medicinal, isn’t it? Certainly some other plants introduced to the West by the same person are.
  • I could tell you all about the gender gap in tea cultivation in Kenya.
  • And I bet there’s one in Japan too.
  • Not to mention in livestock-keeping. But I don’t suppose that will affect (ILRI’s) plans for a Kenyan livestock genebank.
  • Crowdsourcing herbarium data. Maybe there’s some specimens of wild tea species in there…
  • India reaches out to Africa. ICRISAT involved. Debal Deb, probably not so much. Chai, anyone?

Brainfood: Pear history, Markets & biodiversity, Conserving small populations, Niche & range, Sustainability in the US, Production forecasts, Sheep differences

Nibbles: Indigenous conservation, Rice and conservation, Amazon medicines, Organic products, Sustainable oysters, Cherfas at Seed Savers, Calestous Juma, Cassava website, Israeli agritech, Fragaria breeding, Catacol whitebeam, Weather sensors, FAO Commission & Conference, Amartya Sen

Brainfood: Maize domestication, Restoration success, Rare species, Pollinator loss, Diversity and productivity, Cacao/coffee & ecosystem services, Brazilian coffee, GM cotton benefits

Brainfood: Grass evolution, Great Lakes fisheries, African cassava, Sustainable UK farms, USA biodiversity loss, PVS, Agriculture to the rescue