In situ

Nibbles: Impact evaluation reviews, Coffee podcast, Pretty on sustainable intensification, Patient capital, Searching for species names, Searching in general, Palestinian agriculture, Korean Neolithic, Mesquite in Africa, CIMMYT-China, Banana trade, UK plant science, Breadfruit, Weed, Beans in Mexico, Macadamia, Organic Cali

How to do impact evaluation. Required reading.
Podcast on the history of coffee from Linn. Soc. Required listening.
How to intensify agriculture sustainably. Meah.
It may well involve patient capital though.
This thing will look for all the species names in a piece of text or website. Bound to come in useful one of these days.
How to use Google properly. And a vaguely agricultural quiz to see if you’ve been listening in class.
Protecting ancient irrigation system on the West Bank.
And finding the oldest agricultural site in East Asia.
The good and bad side of Prosopis in Africa.
CIMMYT in China.
The banana as a weapon.
Touring UK plant science sites.
Mapping breadfruit to save the world.
“Over 78 million Europeans (15–64 years) have tried cannabis…” Purely medicinal purposes, man.
“We wanted to see how farmers are reacting to this global climate change…” Bean farmers, not cannabis farmers.
If you’re at the Noosa Botanic Gardens, Cooroy, you can see rare macadamias. Yeah but can you smoke ’em?
Organic seed systems in California. No, not cannabis, settle down.

Maize geneticist and forage breeder among USDA’s Agricultural Research Service Scientist of the Year winners.
BBC man lands top Kew job.
Elinor Ostrom RIP.
If the wormwood don’t get you, the groundsel will. A tale of two wild Asteraceae.
Foxtail Millet Offers Clues for Assembling the Switchgrass Genome. So that’s what millet is good for.

A seed fair in South Sudan. Good idea, but why only certified seed?
Maybe they should watch Seeds of Freedom. Well, maybe.
Genetic diversity is important! Settle down, we’re talking dandelions.
Nature’s value includes crops. Phew. Dandelion is a crop, isn’t it?
Talking about value… She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie…
And again. Award-winning research on livestock farming’s value to developing countries. And its dark side.
Both of which could of course be usefully visualized by the people involved.
Vizualise this! Nightmare skyscraping vertical farms, for real.
Today’s jetpack request comes from Sophien Kamoun, stimulated by ravishing fungi.

OBIS maps marine organisms. But does it include this data from China?
Private sector delivers biofortified millet. But will it make it to the wiki for Indian agriculture?
New paper by APRODEV and PELUM on why CAADP should follow IAASTD. Glossary not included. And more on African agriculture from Gates. Not like this, though.
Millennium Seed Bank in ecosystem restoration. And a study on ecosystems that are actually going to require less restoration than others.
Monsanto supports online world flora. What could possibly go wrong? Meanwhile, in the public sector…
Olivier de Schutter’s recent Right to Food shpiel for IFPRI. LOTS of words. I guess you had to be there.
Small-scale elk farming primer. Not as crazy as it sounds, but pretty crazy.
And if you’re a young scientist, from sub-Saharan Africa, and interested in forest genetic resources, well, here’s a fine forestry fellowship opportunity.
The Bounty Redux. The whole bringing-breadfruit-to-the Caribbean thing seems to be going more smoothly this time.
Huffington slideshow on the world’s endangered foods.

June 18th. If you’re tired of the Copacabana, why not go to the seminar on Achieving and measuring sustainable intensification, and tell us how they did it.
India is the world’s largest “beef” exporter. Why the scare quotes? Read the No 2 story here.
I wonder how much beef of the dwarf cattle in Albania and Greece is exported. The SAVE Newsletter is always great fun.
Alaskan importing heirloom seeds from equally frigid parts of the world.