Indigenous knowledge systems

Nibble: South Sudan seed fair, Seed cinema, Dandelion diversity, Nature’s value graphic, Cocaine synthesis, Livestock farming, Visualizing conservation trade-offs, Vertical farms, Sequence fungi

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.

Maize diversity sliced and diced to within an inch of its life.
Mapping invasives sometimes = mapping crop wild relatives. Compare and contrast.
Red List hits 20,000 species.
And yet we keep finding new ones, even in Europe.
Reconstructing a Korean dog breed.
You too can help IUCN with its genebank guidelines.
Video history of ginkgos. “Are we watching them as they evolve, or are they watching us?”
Video history of Navajo sheep. Touching.
Malaysian forest tree genebank at work. Any ginkgos in it?
Hurry! You have 2 days to apply for a Training course on Food Systems: From Agronomy to Human Health, in Benin.

GIBF taxonomy is broken. We’re doomed. No, but it can be fixed. Phew.
Maybe start with a unique identifier for taxonomists? Followed by one for genebank accessions… Yeah. Right.
Domesticating animals won’t save them. And more on the commodification of wildlife. Is that even a word?
Geomedicine is here. Can geonutrition be far behind? We’re going to need better maps, though.
Saving heirlooms, one bright student at a time.
“Botanists Make Much Use of Time.” If you can get beyond the title, there’s another, quite different, but again quite nice, seed saving story on page 3.
“Why aren’t these plants the poster children [for plant conservation]?” You tell me.
Or, instead of doing something about it, as above, we could have a week of Collective Rice Action 2012.
You can park your sourdough here, sir.
How Thoreau is helping boffins monitor phenology. But there’s another way too.
“She drinks coffee. She farms coffee. She studies coffee.” Wild coffee.
Massive meet on the Rambo Root. Very soon, in Uganda.
Ketchup is from China? Riiiight. Whatever, who cares, we have the genome!
And in other news, there are truffles in Qatar. But maybe not for long.
The weirdness of cashews.
The normalcy of home gardens as a source of food security — in Indonesia.
Ok, then, the weirdness of oolong tea.
Aha, gotcha, the normalcy of office bacterial floras! Eh? No, wait…

Kenyan herbal medicines in the spotlight.
Kenyan indigenous trees in the spotlight. The intersection of those two sets would be interesting to explore.
And then if you mash it up with this…
… you might still never predict rural Malawi to explode with interest in paprika.
And yet, (a small bit of) rural America embraces (a version of) sustainability.
While Bangladeshi farmers embrace participatory wheat variety selection. No idea what they found; the link there is down.
Next up, participatory selection for efficient use of phosphorus by rape?
This week’s super-modern chef sourcing strange stuff from the semi-wild gets it in New Jersey.
Beetroot diversity. Ignore the recipes; focus on the chart of nutrition; has that research been published?
As for potatoes, the People’s Plot thrives on Olympic glory.
Quick now: what links Sicily to Kenya? Both make meals of cucurbit leaves!
OK clever clogs: what links a neglected legume with destructive energy recovery practices? Fracking guar gum, that’s what! (h/t BPA.)
Nuts, isn’t it? Anyone up for sequencing some 16th century coconuts?