Indigenous knowledge systems

Nibbles: Pavlovsk, Maize, Papaver somniferum, Organics, Zulu gardens, Feasts, Female farmers, Transhumance, Dogs

Bioversity International and UNEP jointly pile on the pressure to preserve Pavlovsk …
… as do plant professors from University of Wisonsin.
Mexican maize farmers using CIMMYT genebank materials to adapt their varieties. Why not in Africa, then?
High praise for a novel on opium.
Mat Kinase takes Time to task over lacklustre organics article.
King Goodwill Zwelithini calls for One Home One Garden campaign to support food-growing and nutrition.
Feasts predate agriculture. Well, yeah.
Female farmers … a bloke writes.
Great pic on the joys of modern transhumance.
Resurrecting the Maize King. And why not?
More than anyone has a right to know about dogs in the ancient world.

Irish Times does seed saving, well.
Australia too considers genebanks. In depth.
“[T]he largest private collection of wild trees in Britain.” All grown from seed.
James and the Giant Corn gives you the straight dope on the wheat genome … so we don’t have to. Thanks.
Swiddeners can help with reforestation?
KIT tells us all about how to make spices sustainable.

Very sad to hear (belatedly) that Professor Emeritus Charles B. Heiser Jr. of Indiana University passed away on June 11, 2010. He was an extremely influential ethnobotanist, training many distinguished graduate students as well as having many wonderfully informative and entertaining popular books to his name.

CIFOR has a blog!
Nice series of videos on eating weeds.
Video on Peru’s “Andean rodeo.” You heard me.
Africa needs drought-tolerant maize. Ok, fair enough, but here’s my question. Shouldn’t they have done this study before doing all that breeding? Oh, who knows, maybe they did.
“Biofortification will thus remain relevant to poor rural populations in the years to come, as their incomes will still be far too low to afford a more diversified diet.” What? Who says a diversified diet need be expensive?
Russia faces looming buckwheat crisis. At least the genetic resources are safe in the Vavilov Institute. Unless of course somebody decides to, I don’t know, build luxury villas there, or something.

An interview with the legendary Melaku Worede.
Rwanda has to go from 100 to 30,000 ha of bananas, apparently.
Coconut water good for athletes. And the rest of us too, actually.
Gates Foundation launches a “community page.”
Bolivians going back to their food roots.
“…better integration of health and agricultural interventions and policy” needed. Seconded.
“[A] graphical accounting of the limits to what one planet can provide.” Groovy climate change stuff.
And if that left you gasping for more, here’s “Socioeconomic consequences of climate change in Sub-equatorial Africa related to the agricultural sector”.
“Mediterranean” diet set for World Heritage Listing. Maybe. Spaniards, Greeks to object?
Kenya’s macadamia crop threatened, but help is at hand. In other news, Kenya has a macadamia crop.
Equilibrium goes Nuts.