Nibbles: Pavlovsk, Maize, Papaver somniferum, Organics, Zulu gardens, Feasts, Female farmers, Transhumance, Dogs

Cloning wins, kinda

Biodiversity? We don’t need no stinkin’ biodiversity.

A cloned steer has won the same prize it (in a manner of speaking) won two years ago. At least it says something about judges’s consistency, except, of course, that they knew. Susan Schneider at the Agricultural Law blog examines the case from all angles, and comes up unhappy.

Nibbles: Biotech to the rescue, Chinese horses, Soybean carotenoids, CropMobs, Nutrition, Coffee pests, Varroa, Berries, NUS

Nibbles: CIFOR, Weeds, Camelids, Drought, Biofortification, Buckwheat

  • CIFOR has a blog!
  • Nice series of videos on eating weeds.
  • Video on Peru’s “Andean rodeo.” You heard me.
  • Africa needs drought-tolerant maize. Ok, fair enough, but here’s my question. Shouldn’t they have done this study before doing all that breeding? Oh, who knows, maybe they did.
  • “Biofortification will thus remain relevant to poor rural populations in the years to come, as their incomes will still be far too low to afford a more diversified diet.” What? Who says a diversified diet need be expensive?
  • Russia faces looming buckwheat crisis. At least the genetic resources are safe in the Vavilov Institute. Unless of course somebody decides to, I don’t know, build luxury villas there, or something.