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February 16, 2011

Bibbles: Nutrition conference, Arabidopsis tinkering, Grape evolution

The Leveraging Agriculture: what engaged participants? And the IFPRI contribution. What’s the intersection of those two sets, I wonder.
Productive means susceptible. Except when it doesn’t. I’m in that kind of mood today.
The deep origins of Vitis.

February 16, 2011

Earth Microbiome Project sets an example

Is there any good reason why we should not do this with agrobiodiversity, starting with crops and their wild relatives? In fact, is there any good reason why we have not done it already?

February 12, 2011February 12, 2011

Agriculture being leveraged in Delhi

The IFPRI 2020 Conference on “Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health,” is off and running in New Delhi, India. If you can’t be there in person, at least there’s a Twitter feed. Impressions from participants always welcome.

LATER: There’s a blog too, of course.

February 8, 2011

The Concrete Corn Field

Full 1297094680DublinCorn

This picture contains more layers of meaning than you can possibly imagine. Nicola Twilley unpacks some of them at GOOD. Has she left any out?

February 8, 2011February 8, 2011

Nibbles: Egyptian mysteries, Svalbard, Pineapple fabric, Chinese alcohol, Seed Saving

“Readers, florists, Egyptians, can you help?” Maybe some of them are crops.
Seeds move from South to North for safety. Australia backs up to Norway.
Tired of your hair shirt? Try pineapple fibre.
The history of alcohol in China; Happy Rabbit.
How to save heirloom seeds (for people near Central Arkansas).
Food and War (not what you think; a book review)

1. Ancient farmers didn’t have to wait for the genetic diversity that made domestication possible. They selected from variation already present in wild plants, including the ancestors of rice and maize. Domestication was as much about spotting (or happening upon) useful differences as creating new ones.
2. English colonists in America called Indigenous dogs “wolves,” revealing as much about colonial perceptions as about the animals themselves. This history of Indigenous dogs shows how unfamiliar animals were classified through peculiarly European ideas about wildness.
3. Austria is bringing forgotten apple varieties back to life. Saving old varieties in genebanks is one thing: getting people to grow, sell and eat them is another, but it can be done. Or at least tried.
4. Jordan’s olive-oil heritage centres on traditional varieties such as Nabali and ancient Rumi trees, but most production is consumed locally, leaving exports limited and making provenance, cultivar and harvest date important indicators for buyers. Compare and contrast with Austrian apples.
5. Small island developing states have distinctive food cultures and ingredients, but face particular challenges in building sustainable and resilient food systems. FAO’s A Taste of SIDS explores the connections between island food, biodiversity and culinary heritage. Nice to see diversity within crops considered, though a few local variety names would have been nice.
Published on October 21, 2026