Housekeeping

December 22, 2006

Season’s greetings from the Kenya highlands

Ok, it looks like I’m online again. Took a bit of doing, but a Kenyan internet provider called Wananchi has an interesting wireless solution based on one of the local mobile networks. I’m writing this from our apartment in Nairobi, but I hope to post next week from my mother-in-law’s tea farm, and include some photographs of the local agriculture.

December 4, 2006

Possible blogging hiatus

We may or may not be having a coup today here in Fiji, so blogging may be erratic for the next couple of days…

November 26, 2006November 27, 2006

Housekeeping

Tidying up a bit round here.

Links are now sub-divided into Individuals and Organisations; makes sense to us. Let us know about others you think we should include.
There’s a category called Articles, with a page of its own, for longer pieces that we intend to provoke thought. Respond, if you like.
Speaking of which, you no longer have to register to comment, although it would still be nice if you did. We think our anti-spam defences are reasonably secure, although we’ll be keeping an eye out for unwarranted penetration.

That’s it. Have a good week.

Fresh Nibbles

Ancient farmers didn’t have to wait for the genetic diversity that made domestication possible. They selected from variation already present in wild plants, including the ancestors of rice and maize. Domestication was as much about spotting (or happening upon) useful differences as creating new ones.
English colonists in America called Indigenous dogs “wolves,” revealing as much about colonial perceptions as about the animals themselves. This history of Indigenous dogs shows how unfamiliar animals were classified through peculiarly European ideas about wildness.
Austria is bringing forgotten apple varieties back to life. Saving old varieties in genebanks is one thing: getting people to grow, sell and eat them is another, but it can be done. Or at least tried.
Jordan’s olive-oil heritage centres on traditional varieties such as Nabali and ancient Rumi trees, but most production is consumed locally, leaving exports limited and making provenance, cultivar and harvest date important indicators for buyers. Compare and contrast with Austrian apples.
Small island developing states have distinctive food cultures and ingredients, but face particular challenges in building sustainable and resilient food systems. FAO’s A Taste of SIDS explores the connections between island food, biodiversity and culinary heritage. Nice to see diversity within crops considered, though a few local variety names would have been nice.

Published on October 21, 2026