- Pretty much the last thing biofortified crops do is empower farmers to be food system change agents. But they’re still a pretty good idea.
- Same for the sweet potato in the Caribbean. On both counts.
- Jeremy’s latest on saving rare livestock breeds. Now, that would change the food system a bit.
- But would those rare breeds work on Zoom?
- Maybe this farmers market in Nairobi could stir things up a bit.
- Learning from Native American farming practices is always a good idea.
- Rethinking the Amazon development model could do with some of that too.
- Grapevine wild relatives are pretty empowering too.
- And, for at least one chef, so is eelgrass.
Nibbles: Roman cuisine, Jewish cooking, Seed sources, Prof. Moreno, English gardens, Cassava
- Very expensive new book on Roman and old reasonable one on Jewish cooking for that special person in your life.
- Places you can buy heirloom seeds for that special person in your life.
- The special person that is the new head of the UPM Plant Germplasm Bank in Spain.
- I learned from this article on a newly excavated Tudor garden about a pretty special grapevine.
- Cassava is pretty special, despite its reputation.
Brainfood: Livestock edition
- Recent land use and management changes decouple the adaptation of livestock diversity to the environment. The diversity of traditional livestock breeds used to be closely related to climate in Spain, but this is breaking down.
- Rationalizing ex situ collection of reproductive materials for endangered livestock breed conservation. Also in Spain, so I hope these guys are talking to the above.
- Applying the zoo model to conservation of threatened exceptional plant species. Not to mention livestock in Spain? Basically talking about a pedigree-based approach.
- Selection and drift reduce genetic variation for milk yield in Manech Tête Rousse dairy sheep. A bit like this (see above)?
- Influence of land tenure interventions on human well-being and environmental outcomes. Fairly good evidence from meta-review that formal titling has good social and environmental outcomes. But what did it do for traditional breeds, right?
- Lipid residues in pottery from the Indus Civilisation in northwest India. Not as much dairy as thought, and mainly non-ruminant fats. Definitely traditional breeds though.
- Ancient proteins provide evidence of dairy consumption in eastern Africa. Starting when lactase persistence was still rare or absent.
- Genome-scale sequencing and analysis of human, wolf and bison DNA from 25,000 year-old sediment. Sediment? Yep, sediment.
- Effect of dry heat on seed germination of Desmodium and Stylosanthes species. Could be used rather than mechanical scarification, thus saving time and effort. Livestock gotta eat.
Nibbles: Communications, Sewage, Citrus, Hemp
- Follow Luigi on Twitter.
- Follow Jeremy on Twitter. And subscribe to his newsletter: citrus and shit this week.
- Speaking of shit…
Nibbles: Seed edition
- Seed stories.
- Heterogenous seeds book chapter.
- Heritage seeds in Britain book.
- Seed app. For tricot trials.
- Seed Treaty ratified in Nigeria.