- More either-or stuff from the Guardian on the Indian GM brijal story.
- The USDA prickly pear cactus germplasm collection gets some exposure. And how many times can one say that.
- Much better title from Discover on that ancient northern Amazonian earthworks story.
- Kenyan foresters tell people to eat bamboo. Luigi’s mother-in-law politely demurs. On the other hand, she might like this.
- Swiflet farming? Swiflet farming.
- Really heated exchange on paper on coconut lethal yellowing in Yucatan develops on Google Groups. I love the internet.
- PROTA publishes expensive book on promising African plants. Promises, promises. NASA promised us the personal jetpack. Where are we with that?
- Nice summary of that Mesoamerican agricultural origins story we blogged briefly about a few days ago. So what exactly do you call hunter-gatherers who also grow crops?
- First International Symposium on Wild Relatives of Subtropical and Temperate Fruit and Nut Crops will be held March 19-23, 2011 in Davis, California on the campus of the University of California, Davis. Book early.
Nibbles: Biocultural diversity, Maasai, Organics, Amazon ag
- IUCN publishes “Biocultural Diversity Conservation, a Global Sourcebook.”
- And here’s an example of the application of the above, I suppose.
- UNEP looks to boost organic farming in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.
- Why don’t they just import organics from West Africa, like the rest of Europe?
- Wired does history of ag in Amazonia.
Nibbles: Asses, Mapping pathogens, Oysters, Tea, Turkish biodiversity hotspot, Dolmades and sage, Yams festival, Pollen video, Agriculture and mitigation, Rarity, School feeding, Sheep
- Jeremy probes into wild asses at Vaviblog.
- Mapping the evolution of pathogens. And in kinda related news…
- The European oyster needs diversity. Well, natch.
- The tree forests of Yunnan, and, concidentally, the story of how the secret of their product got out.
- The Kaçkar Mountains at Yusufeli, northeast Turkey are in trouble. Any crop wild relatives there, among the bears and other charismatic megafauna?
- Speaking of Turkey, here’s how to make one of its delicacies. But hey, if you don’t have vine leaves, you can use this.
- Having fun with yams.
- Drori does pollen.
- FAO’s Mitigation of Climate Change in Agriculture (MICCA) Project. Any agrobiodiversity-related stuff? Need to explore…
- “…conserving species may only require specific activities, such as collect and distributing seeds.”
- African school feeding programme uses “local” products. What would Paarlberg say? You can find out here, if you have 90 minutes to spare.
- British boffins breed self-shearing sheep. No, really.
Nibbles: Apples, Mango, Atlas, Cheese
- NY Times touts heirloom apple book.
- Coca Cola to help Haitian mango farmers.
- Nature Conservancy launches online Atlas of Global Conservation. No agriculture, natch.
- Promoting Mediterranean cheese.
Prota4U: stopped making sense.
I’ve only lately begun to sip from the firehose that is Twitter. Many things about it puzzle me, but not unduly. One thing I do find odd is the feed called Prota4U. It’s an arm of The Prota Foundation, and Prota stands for Plant Resources of Tropical Africa. The Foundation’s aims are entirely laudable:
It intends to synthesize the dispersed information on the approximately 7,000 useful plants of Tropical Africa and to provide wide access to the information through Webdatabases, Books, CD-Rom’s and Special Products. … The objectives are to bring the published information, now accessible to the resourceful happy few, into the public domain. This will contribute to greater awareness and sustained use of the ‘world heritage of African useful plants’, with due respect for traditional knowledge and intellectual property rights.
One could quibble with the details, but the overall idea is sound. Prota4U — groovy to the nth degree — publishes an endless stream of tweets, roughly one every three minutes while it is awake, that don’t link to anything, often don’t say much, and frequently have nothing to do with useful plants of Tropical Africa. This particular rant was occasioned by this tweet:
Avena sativa — It has a floury texture and a mild, somewhat creamy flavour.
Fascinating. Just the thing to nibble on with my breakfast oats. But so what? And the tweet doesn’t go anywhere either. Annoyed, I Googled that descriptive phrase. And found it in two places. One, Plants for a Future’s database entry for Avena ludoviciana. The other, this tweet from Prota4U:
Avena byzantina – It has a floury texture and a mild, somewhat creamy flavour.
That too goes nowhere.
Of course in the greater scheme of things what Prota does with its information is no concern of mine, and I could simply stop following. I’m just totally puzzled by what it thinks it is doing. Someone, anyone, put me out of my misery, please.