Brainfood: Kids and veggies, Common names, Markets, Barley genetic history, Inbreeding depression

Don’t forget the open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here.

Livestock trifecta

Thanks to the hyperactive DAD-Net, three bits of news of interest for livestock diversity conservation:

  • A report on Rare Breed International’s 8th Global Conference.
  • New articles in the journal “Pastoralism” are open access online. But for how long?
  • NordGen is seeking a leader of NordGen-Farm Animals. It says here there is more info online but I can’t find it. No doubt it’ll be up soon.

LATER: Oh, and here are the pictures from the Pakistani National Goat Show, including some of the winning entries.

Nibbles: Fish blog, El Guardabosques, Andean crops, Traditional knowledge

Goat weight competitions in Pakistan

I can’t resist sharing this message which Prof. Dr. Muhammad Sajjad Khan sent to DAD-Net yesterday.

News of the hour is that new weight record of a goat is now 291 kg. This was accomplished in the weight competitions just held during the last one hour here at Faisalabad (Pakistan). The Buck belonged to Beetal breed and strain was Faisalabadi. Some of you might know that last year’s record was 280 kg and some people did not believe that it could be broken. See the potential. The 2nd and 3rd position holders were not far away (289.5 and 289 kg). Weight competitions for goats are held every year here at Faisalabad before the Eid festival. For younger bucks (less than 2 teeth, completions are expected to be completed on Sunday, the 30th Oct. Will share the photos and details. The beauty, weight and milk competitions at individual and flock level are expected to be completed by Monday. I will post the photos soon. University of Agriculture Faisalabad (Pakistan) is organizing these competitions and among others, GEF-UNEP-ILRI Asia project is one of the co-sponsors.

Can’t wait for those photos…