- “Food is the most cost-effective intervention.”
- Peru promotes potatoes.
- The Importance of Biodiversity to Medicine. Anyone got access? Any mention of nutrition?
- EU Says bees should rest. Problem solved.
- Extreme beer. All problems solved.
- Eat local? I don’t think so.
- Itchy Italian gourmands gutted over climate change-caused truffle troubles.
- Mulberry trees pay the price for immodesty.
- While fig trees planted by Jesuits survive. It’s a funny old world. Fruit tree trifecta in play.
- And it comes in! Today’s saving-the-frigging-English-apple story comes to you from The Guardian. Enough already, the English apple is going to be fine.
Further dispatches from germplasm database hell
In which our hero Jeremy tries to trace germplasm collected by Vavilov, and is disappointed.
Historic botanic garden criminally overlooked
Well it didn’t take long for someone to point out to me that I’d left out an important site from my list of agrobiodiversity attractions around Montpellier. That’s of course the beautiful and historic botanic garden, one of the oldest in France. I’m happy to rectify the omission.
Agrobiodiversity tourism alive and well in South of France
I’ve been in Montpellier for the past few days attending what is actually quite an interesting conference, which is just as well because we’re out in a pretty uninteresting suburb. We did get a day off on Saturday, but otherwise we haven’t had much free time. A pity, because perusing the little pamphlets describing different local tourist attractions that one finds scattered around the hotel reveals at least three with interesting agricultural biodiversity angles.
One is a boat tour around the Isles de Stel in the Camargue: salt works, horses, bulls, rice fields, local food, the lot. Plus it starts from the fascinating medieval town of Aigues-Mortes. ((Which was the destination of our field trip on Saturday, and the subject of my autostitched photo. Well worth a visit.))
Or you can visit a buffalo reserve near Sainte-Eulalie. This seems to refer to the wisent, saved from extinction by captive breeding in Poland.
And, finally, there’s La Bambouseraie, near Anduze. It’s a botanic garden, resource centre and nursery dedicated to bamboos that was established in 1856 by Eugène Mazel.
Mazel had made a fortune in trading with spices he directly imported from Asia. This activity allowed him to have plants, practically unknown in Europe at that time, sent to him from these distant countries.
Too bad I’m stuck in this hotel. Although, what with the Air France strike and all, I might get the chance for some sightseeing after all.
Nibbles: Sturgeon, UK, Goats, Bees
- North America’s largest freshwater fish saved from extinction.
- 10 years ago, Britain’s National Trust turned “its biggest managed farm into a gigantic experiment as an antidote to intensive farming” in Snowdonia.
- The origin of the goat investigated.
- Tracking bees.