Information

April 20, 2016April 20, 2016

Filling up at the Food Tank

Ok, so let me not make the same mistake again. The Food Tank Summit is on right now, and is being livestreamed. Among the forthcoming highlights, our friend Simran Sethi, author of Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love, will be moderating a panel on Beyond Calories: The Need for Nutrient Dense Diets in a couple of hours:

Over the last 50 years, research organizations, governments, and development agencies have focused on increasing calories available per person–yet, today, nearly 1 billion people continue to go hungry and another 2.3 billion people are overweight or obese. Clearly, filling people up is not enough — we need to actually nourish them with nutrient dense crops and foods that are good for both people and the planet.

Join in using #foodtank.

April 20, 2016April 20, 2016

Finger on the pulses

Very remiss of us not to mention until now the International Conference on Pulses (ICP2016) in Marrakesh. Alas, it’s ending today. But you can look over the tweets using the #TalkPulses hashtag. Or revel in the keynote presentation on the genomics of it all.

Pulse Genomics Comes of Age from ICARDA

Is it too late to make our customary call for contributions? I think not. If you have any impressions you’d like to share, we’re at your disposal.

April 19, 2016April 19, 2016

Nibbles: Vavilov double, Huge avocado, African urban ag, Agarwood threat, Double coffee, Sequencing beer, Sloane ranges, Chinese bees, Gendered breeding, Access to seeds/meds, Genebank funding, Quinoa prices, Organic ganja

VIR on Atlas Obscura, with pic goodness courtesy of yours truly. And on the same site, something Vavilov would have approved of: a very diverse Tajik apple orchard.
A new avocado to conjure by.
Urban agriculture won’t cut the mustard.
Trees that named Fragrant Harbour disappearing.
The downside of coffee. But never fear, there’s a strategy coming!
The beernome!
Happy birthday Sir Hans Sloane, for many botanical reasons!
Chinese pollinators in trouble. Enough of the exclamation marks.
Do you have any examples of “plant or animal breeding that has successfully incorporated gender considerations into its strategies and end products”? Contact these people.
Can seeds learn from meds, policy-wise?
Bioversity DG lobbies for genebanks.
Get your fill of quinoa, courtesy of Jeremy.
Sustainable pot. ‘Cause that’s the California Way, man.

April 15, 2016April 15, 2016

Getting schooled in GRIN-Global

Everything in between, you say? How about information management? That’s at the beginning, at the end, and in between.

gringlobal

This GRIN-Global course is taking place at CIAT, another CGIAR centre. I told you there’s a lot going on in those international genebanks.

April 14, 2016April 30, 2021

A PGRFA course to take note of

A shout-out to everyone at the Wageningen UR course “Contemporary approaches to genetic resources conservation and use.” I was with them yesterday, and a great bunch they are too.

This is a very well put together and expertly taught, in large part by CGN staff, three-week introductory course, particularly strong on the policy aspects. It is offered every year. There were about 20-25 participants on this occasion, from all over the world, including four from CG Centre genebanks (ICRISAT and IITA).