- The International Symposium on Aromatic and Medicinal Plants, 3-6 November 2008 in Noumea, New Caledonia. Anyone interested in live blogging it for us? He asked, to thunderous silence.
- Modern Forager on the traditional diets of some funky places.
- IRRI flickrs rice photos. Another day, another neologism. Via.
- The lengths people will go to exchange agrobiodiversity. Sorry, I have a thing about maps of trade routes. Via.
- Australian woman adopts Italian cucumber.
- Corn domesticated even earlier in Ecuador.
- Sweet potato may have got to the Pacific islands by chance.
- The truth about those hipster farmers; “it must be true, I read it in the paper”.
Aztec food market
Hip young food writer explores a Mexico City food market for the BBC. Hilarity ensues. Not had enough?
A chef on seed saving
Chef’s Corner seems like a great idea: a blog by an experienced chef interested in American food traditions and the agrobiodiversity that underpins them. A recent post waxed lyrical about seed saving. Problem is, prior to this month’s six posts, the only previous ones were in May 2007. So I’m not sure how serious Chef Robert is about this venture. But I hope he sticks with it.
American Gothic, 21st century style
Somewhat related to Jeremy’s post just below, there’s an article in the New York Times about young Americans going back to the farm. Or rather, going to the farm for the first time: we’re talking Upper East Siders clambering onto tractors. Would be interesting to see whether the percentage of organic farmers among them turns out to be above the average, and whether they will tend to eschew biofuels and favour weird niche crops, heirloom varieties, and agricultural biodiversity in general. Via Metafilter.
Nibbles: AGRA, Andean potatoes, farmer factsheets, tequila, Dogon, yak milk
- AGRA’s first eight PhD students get to work.
- Papa Andina Regional Initiative assessed by CGIAR CAPrI. Can’t be bothered reading the whole thing? Try this.
- Factsheets for farmers in Kenya and Uganda; Luigi’s MIL not available for comment.
- Tequila for lunch: Jeremy comments: “Wish I could be at this seminar, at the University of California, Davis”.
- Dogon agriculture 101.
- Got yak milk?