- Food shopping in Harare includes dried caterpillars by the sackful. Luigi says: “Yum”.
- Carnival of Evolution #10 at The Oyster’s Garter. Jeremy says: “Yum”.
- Ecological cacao. We all say: “Yum”.
Nibbles: Mopane, Evolution, Cacao
- Food shopping in Harare includes dried caterpillars by the sackful. Luigi says: “Yum”.
- Carnival of Evolution #10 at The Oyster’s Garter. Jeremy says: “Yum”.
- Ecological cacao. We all say: “Yum”.
Nibbles: Advice, Bees, Chops, Delights
- Students offer organic advice.
- First Beekeeper.
- Mangalista pigs, from Hungarian obscurity to top tables.
- The latest botany carnival Berry Go Round 15 is up.
Nibbles: Infoflow, Apples, Urban agriculture, Veterinary medicine
- The Tracing Paper launches a twitter round-up. UK based, and food system in general, not just agrobiodiversity, and very useful.
- Old English apples in supermarkets … in three years time, DV. Via Tracing Paper (see above)
- SPIN-Farming has a new presentation you can download to promote intensive, diverse farming.
- South African wild plants as veterinary medicines.
Asking the tough questions
- If, 10,000 years ago, Neolithic plant breeders had domesticated another plant that would have today produced a highly desirable crop, what would that be, and is it too late to start now?
- How can we combine traditional plant breeding techniques, biotechnology and GMOs to prepare the world’s crop plants for oncoming climate change?
- How can we retain biodiversity in crop resources?
- Will every farmer in the world be able to get a crop genotype specifically produced to get the best from his/her field?
- Given the medium to long term unsustainability of oil-based high input industrial agriculture, should we be developing high yielding perennials to replace existing annuals?
Some of the questions submitted to the Journal of Experimental Botany from which will be selected the 100 most important questions facing plant science. And they’re pretty good questions. I found them by searching for “crop” and “agriculture.” The tag line for the survey — and title of the CABI blog entry which pointed me to it — is: How can plant scientists change the world? Go on and submit your own ideas. Conservation of agrobiodiversity does not seem to be particularly well served thus far. You’ve got until the end of March.