Nibbles: Crop change, Chinese chocolate, Food system, Eating local, Heritage wheat, NTFPs, Distinguished ethnobotanist, Pumpkins, Garum recipe, Fermentation, Archaea, NBPGR interview

  1. IFAD says farmers might need to change crops. Farmers unavailable for comment as presumably they’re too busy changing crops.
  2. Case in point: China moves into cacao.
  3. The food system is at the centre of all our ills. But I’m not sure switching from maize to sorghum is going to cut it.
  4. And neither will watching those food miles, alas.
  5. Example of a farmer changing crops, watching food miles and diversifying the food system.
  6. I suppose we could also just eat more trees?
  7. We’ll need ethnobotanists for that.
  8. And there’s clearly plenty of pumpkins out there.
  9. Maybe garum would go well with some of those NTFPs, and pumpkins.
  10. Do they teach garum at Fermentation School?
  11. Whoa, I did not realize archaea in the vertebrate gut feed on bacterial fermentation products.
  12. And let’s not forget to put everything in genebanks before it’s too late so we have a chance to do all of the above.

Brainfood: RICA, AEGIS, CWR, Agrosavia, DSI, CRISPR, Tradition, SNS, Stability, Birds, Sparing, Genetic erosion

Legendary ethnobotanist bags award

Congratulations to my friend Pablo Eyzaguirre for receiving the Distinguished Economic Botanist award for 2021 from the Society of Economic Botany. It looks like his wonderful talk describing a career dedicated to exploring the connection between agricultural biodiversity and human wellbeing in all its forms was recorded. I’m not sure whether it will be available to all, but I really hope so, as it would inspire many, as Pablo did me many years ago.

Brainfood: Coconut cloning, Apricot diversity, European ag double, Diet seasonality, Farm size, Ethiopian seeds, Biocultural diversity, Aquatic food, Grasslands, Pollinator mixtures