- Promoting food security and enhancing Nigeria’s small farmers’ income through value-added processing of lesser-known and under-utilized indigenous fruits and vegetables. It’s the infrastructure, stupid.
- The role of wild vegetables in household food security in South Africa: A review. No, it’s the information, stupid.
- Indigenous wild food plants in home gardens: improving health and income — with the assistance of agricultural extension. Nope, it’s the extension, stupid.
- Towards recommendations for metadata and data handling in plant phenotyping. It’s the standardization, stupid.
- Cytoplasmic diversity in potato breeding: case study from the International Potato Center. It’s a genetic bottleneck, stupid.
- Towards breeding of triploid chamomile (Matricaria recutita L.) — Ploidy variation within German chamomile of various origins. It’s the triploids, stupid.
- Making a chocolate chip: development and evaluation of a 6K SNP array for Theobroma cacao. Oh, very clever, now everybody and their uncle will be able to breed cacao, stupid.
- Arbuscular mycorrhiza differentially affects synthesis of essential oils in coriander and dill. It’s not just genetics, stupid.
- Comparative transcriptional profiling analysis of developing melon (Cucumis melo L.) fruit from climacteric and non-climacteric varieties. It’s the sugar metabolism, stupid.
- Climate-driven diversity loss in a grassland community. It’s the increasing aridity, stupid.
Nuts
There is, apparently, something called the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council. With a Twitter feed and everything. And it has a rather busy, but very informative, infographic on trade flows in these commodities. Here’s just a part of it. I’d like to print the whole thing out on A0 paper and stick it on my wall.
Nibbles: AVRDC genebank, Grits, Sikhs & parmesan, Congolese gouda, New rice, Poisonous plants, Bush tucker, Co-evolution, Amazonian medicinals, Native American usufruct
- World Vegetable Centre looking for a genebank manager.
- What’s a grit?
- Who did you say saved parmesan? Who did you say is making gouda?
- Philippines gets some new rice varieties. No, but these are climate-resilient.
- A poisonous plants gardens fits perfectly with my mood today.
- Involve native people in the development of a native foods industry. Well, duh.
- Blame butterflies for broccoli.
- There are a lot of medicinal plants in the Amazon.
- Wild rice (wild but not rice) vs pipeline.
Food composition data for policy makers
Biodiversity International are organizing a workshop on “Biodiversity for Improved Nutrition and Health: The critical role of food composition in decision making for agriculture and nutrition programming and policy” on 2 November 2015, just before the International Food Data Conference (IFDC) in Hyderabad. Sounds very worthy. Just a reminder that if you’re really into food composition, and haven’t done so already, you should probably think about subscribing to the InFoods-Food-Comp listserv, which is where I learned of this workshop.
Nibbles: Pope, CGIAR, Agroecology, ABS, Food shortage, World flora, Nutella, Bees, GMOs, CC & wheat, CC & legumes, EU satellite, Seed saving, Wheat breeding, Strawberry breeding, Adopt-a-crop, Organic tea, Malagasy yams, Seed app, Ebola seeds, Sorghum spoons
And we’re back! While we were away…
- …the Pope pontificated on climate change and GMOs, among other things.
- And so did the CGIAR.
- Boffins in the UK suggested that agroecology might be important to sustainable intensification. No word on whether the CGIAR is listening.
- Bioversity asked for contributions on whether ABS can support farmers. No word on whether anyone is listening.
- And The Economist asked: who cares, anyway?
- Google said it would help botanists catalogue all plants.
- Nutella was bad, and then ok again.
- Bees were again found to be important to agriculture, but not all bees.
- The pros and cons of GMOs were trotted out again. And again.
- Climate change was blamed for smaller loaves of bread. Which as far as I can tell might not be a totally bad thing.
- And for the need to grow drought-resistant legumes.
- The EU launched a satellite to monitor crops.
- Meanwhile, people just got on with it, in their own, sometimes weird, way…
- …breeding wheat. Even organic wheat. Even perennial. Even in Scotland.
- …breeding strawberries. Even with wild relatives.
- …or just adopting the raw materials of breeding.
- Growing organic tea in China.
- Conserving yams in Madagascar.
- Trying to find the appropriate seeds to grow in Kenya.
- And giving probably inappropriate seeds to Ebola-hit farmers.
- Which they can now eat using sorghum spoons.