- Been waiting a while for this. Conservation of plant biodiversity for sustainable diets. PowerPoint as PDF.
- And this. Agricultural Biodiversity Is Essential for a Sustainable Improvement in Food and Nutrition Security. Open-access paper.
- Follow along with the price spikes in food. On-line data.
- South African seed company bought by Pioneer. Speculative.
Uncontacted agrobiodiversity
Survival International has a new website on Uncontacted Tribes:
More than 100 tribes around the world reject contact with outsiders. This is their story.
Somewhat weirdly, the website includes a map, although it is pointed out that it “won’t help anyone make ‘first contact.’ But it will help to stop oil companies and loggers from invading the lands of uncontacted tribes.”
Be that as it may, I could not resist mashing it up in Google Earth 1 with the data in Genesys on the world’s holdings of agrobiodiversity. This is the result for an area comprising the Brazilian state of Rondonia and some surrounding regions.
Not surprisingly, there’s not much in the way of germplasm accessions from the general areas occupied by uncontacted tribes. Oil and logging companies may not be the only things that these tribes should be worried about.
Nibbles: Dog, Beer, Human Planet, Entomophagy, Food Atlas, Pepper, Barley
- When dog was on the menu.
- Going far, and far back, for beer. And indeed yeast. Always worth the effort.
- BBC launches Human Planet, focusing on “man’s remarkable relationship with the natural world.” Which apparently doesn’t include agriculture.
- Mexicans eat many moth species, and not just the larvae.
- Amazing interactive food atlas for the US. wish I had a use for it, but someone surely does.
- Breeding a “better” Jalapeño pepper — to hold more cheese, natcho.
- Food as politics; the tsampa-eaters of the TAR. h/t GOOD.
Put THIS in your databases!
So it’s true. Given enough baboons, and enough time, you can do anything. Even germplasm evaluation.
Nibbles: Genebank, Rice, State of the World, Experiments, Lathyrus, Malaria and lactase persistence, Advice, CWR, Feed
- The Ethiopian Institute of Biodiversity has been up to something, but it is hard to be sure what.
- IRRI is also up to something — Green super rice — but again it is hard to be sure what. Not golden at any rate.
- CIAT picks its favourites from the State of the World 2011 report.
- More than anyone has any right to want to know about the history and future of agricultural experimentation, but fascinating nonetheless.
- The nutritive value and toxicity of grasspea and its relatives.
- Milk may or may not provide some protection from malaria.
- Nutrition advice, filtered for you. Jeremy sez “I like No. 6.”
- Irish launch crop wild relatives website.
- The feed quality of crop residues gets the treatment.