New Agriculturist tackles animals

Yes, the new New Agriculturist is out, and this time it has animal genetic resources in its sights. But not only. As always, it’s got lots of great stuff, including cotton expert Karim Hussein on the International Year of Natural Fibres. Don’t forget to do the online survey.

LATER: The State of the World’s Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is now multi-lingual, at least in part.

LATER STILL: The Sheep Trust has just published a report that says that rare local breeds are more vulnerable to diseases because they live all together in a relatively restricted geographical area.

Nibbles: Databases, Hell squared, Genebanks, Goats, Olives, Safe movement, Pouteria, Roman wine

Non-wood forest products digested but not fed

The new NWFP-Digest is out. At least if you get the alert from FAO by email. If you go to the “Current issue” page on the website you still get the last issue. It should change in the next few days. But why no RSS feed? I’m beginning to think it’s just me that thinks RSS feeds can significantly boost ease of use at no cost.

Desert botany

As we’ve said before, we like blog carnivals. They expose us to new things, and they expose new people to our things. And that is why, despite the frequent lack of direct agricultural interest, we’re always happy to point you to the carnivals that have been good enough to feature our posts.

Berry Go Round no. 14 is up at Gravity’s Rainbow, where there is a bouquet of posts on topics ranging from Darwin’s tree ferns to baby’s breath ((Another accursed common name; Gypsophila elegans, if you please.)) If you fancy submitting something for next time, when the carnival will be hosted at A Neotropical Savanna, you’ve got till the end of the month.

The second edition of Carnival of the Arid is up too, at Coyote Crossing, which is where it started. Some wonderful photographs at Gossamer Tapestry. Maybe some of those are wild relatives? And maybe one of the desert rats over there in the American southwest can shed some light on the true history of Luigi’s mysterious millennial Anasazi beans.

We’re shameless enough to have sent our Sudanese trees to Festival of the Trees No. 33, which is also up at local ecologist. There’s enough there to satisfy the craziest tree hugger, including a little something on alder cones. I hope Michael Bell, who commented recently on his plan to develop alder as a grain crop, is watching. Again, submitting is easy, and again you’ve got till the end of the month.