Livestock

Nibbles: Vietnam ag, Sacred places, GWAS sarcasm, Eating insects, IDS course, Jungle fever, Poverty lecture

Agriculture in Vietnam: rice down, coffee up. I wonder if the two may be related?
Interactive online atlas of sacred lands.
The Allium takes a pot shot at the gene jockeys.
“It’s all about convincing people to take the first bite.” Oh, and the second.
But will insects feature in this professional short course on nutrition from IDS?
SE Asian rainforest as managed as the Amazon?
Prof. Sen’s poverty lecture at LSE.

The need for seed.
If you need to know about the conservation of animal genetic resources in India, this hour-long video may be just what you’re looking for.
Reconstructing Mesoamerican chocolate.
Re-imagining West African cooking.
ICRISAT finds 6 cool chickpea varieties in its genebank. No word on who lost them in the first place.

The taxonomy of cow farts. Can’t improve on that title.
What the hell is Hawaiian Plantain, and why is it needed in Panama?
Ever eat a sedge?
Bet they could do with some pepper.
Ancient Japanese rice found. Let the DNA extraction begin.
Indian farmers can now claim royalties on traditional varieties. What could possibly go wrong?
How about paying them to preserve “traditional and fast disappearing millets“?
Video on CIFOR’s greatest successes. I think the greatest failures would be more instructive.
Self-consciously cool (but don’t let put you off) podcast on the domestication of the dog.
The evolution of human lactose persistence, however, is not all about calcium.
Today’s theory about honeybee deaths is sure to be discussed at today’s honeybee health summit.
Can participatory mapping save the commons? Probably not, but fun nevertheless.
Fun? How about the successful defence of a thesis on “The social structure of cultivated plants: the influence of exchanges, representations and practices on sorghum diversity in Mount Kenya’s people”.
Keep calm and eat kangkung. Don’t you love it when one meme eats another?
Say you want an African Green Revolution Forum … Well, you know, go to Maputo.

Google Map of British protected food names. Where’s fish and chips? Or the cream tea. Japan next?
Indian genebank in the record books for characterizing wheat.
And with no help from CIMMYT!
Getting those damn smallholders to innovate already.
Ghana gets a new cowpea to innovate with. Well, almost.
And there I was thinking smallholders had been innovating for thousands of years. Even in the frozen north. Winter may be coming, but we’ve got grog. Which you know is good for you.
As is chocolate, so go ahead and submit your heirloom cacao beans for evaluation. But don’t be tempted to cheat. We’ll know if you are.
Oh damn, it’s Green Week.
The story behind the methods used in a recent paper on dog diversity. Wonkish.
We seem to have slipped off the Berry Go Round treadmill, which means we missed some gorgeous photos of broad beans.
And another belated treat: UNESCO’s round up of World Heritage agricultural landscapes.
…one of which is not tea in China, but maybe it should be, before it’s too late.

USDA should think about agroecology more. Or at all?
The latest from PAGXXII. Lots on domestication, genebanks, crop improvement, all that cool stuff.
There’s also AETFAT going on, and it’s just as cool. Maybe more so. Though less socially networked, I guess.
How public gardens should build up living plant collections. You’d have thought they’d know.
An update on plant genetic resources from ISHS. Lots happening…
How to support agrobiodiversity through sustainable sourcing.
KFC must have read that slideshare above.
Breaking down the terroir. And not for the first time.
Does vanilla have terroirs? I bet it does. Should ask the world’s expert.
Dye mushrooms? Are you kidding me?
ARCAD, DIADE: No matter how you spell it, lots of French interest (and money) in crop and livestock genetics.
Likewise in India, it looks like from this piece on NBPGR.
The Bioversity Policy Unit is apparently still alive and kicking.
European eels a conservation success story?
Let the ancient DNA sequencing begin!