Indigenous knowledge systems

Nibbles: African seeds, African needs, Egyptian seed preservation, Archaeocandy, Conservation, Seed swap site, Water buffalo genome, Anti-striga films, Entomophagy, Black sigatoka, Pavlovsk, Cannabis genome

Gates just gave AGRA $56 million to make new seed varieties available. PASS still not collecting the diversity it hopes to displace.
Hang on though. Africa needs a “Green renaissance, not revolution”.
Saving seeds the ancient Egyptian way.
Eating sweets the ancient Papuan (and others) way.
Odd to hear an agrobiodiversity dude talking about silver bullets – even with a question mark.
SeedZoo site offers a space to give and to receive “traditional and indigenous food plants from around the world”.
Today’s forthcoming genome of agricultural interest: water buffalo.
Farmer to farmer films – gender sensitive, natch – “fight against striga”.
Assessing the Potential of Insects as Food and Feed in assuring Food Security, from the FAO document repository.
Much sound, less light, on black Sigatoka disease, from the BBC (natch).
Vaviblog rounds up the latest skinny on Pavlovsk.
And speaking of Vavilov, the latest genome to be sequenced has a VIR connection.

In case you were worrying about the impact of the unrest in Syria on the genebank, fear not: The Global Crop diversity Trust has your back.
AoB Blog investigates manioc and marriage. Cassava!
Andy Jarvis climbs mountain to explain impact of climate change on agriculture to Scientific American.

NERICA shmerica.
Did you know that the Society for Advancement of Breeding Research in Asia and Oceania (SABRAO) 12th Congress from 13-16 January 2012 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. No, neither did I.
Whither wild wheat?
Koraput and its agrobiodiversity, including aus rice, makes it on the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS).
GBIF has many duplicates. I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Amazonia was densely populated. No it wasn’t. Yes it was. No it wasn’t.

BBC says we can feed the world through technology. And why not. The Times of India, meanwhile, didn’t get the memo.
Bill Gates at the IFAD Governing Council will probably say the same thing today. And put his money where his mouth is.
CIMMYT Director General said the same recently at an Economist conference. Funny how genebanks are rarely among the saviour technologies being touted.
It’s all about the scaling up, isn’t it?
Tell that to the Lake Chad fisherfolk who are now turning to farming.
And, in another universe, sushi seeks protection.
Buffel vs Rhodes in the Arabian peninsula.

Modern Chinese agronomist praises ancient Chinese agriculture, possibly gets in trouble.
Domesticating trees is still the next big thing.
Transform agriculture for a greener economy, says SciDev.net.
VoA on genebanks, including Svalbard.
Gerbil enthusiasts tackle millets. Yes, gerbils.