Livestock

April 22, 2010July 26, 2017

Hairy pig hits limelight

They don’t say whether it is the famous Lincolnshire Curly Coat, but it looks like it might be. ¹ Now, if only they could make them pocket-sized…

Thanks, Cary.

UPDATE (17 Fe. 2016): Well, “they” were the LA Times, and both the story and video to which we linked back in 2010 are no more. But the “sheep pig” in question probably was the Mangalitza, and the story of how it was rescued from oblivion is actually pretty cool.

April 22, 2010April 22, 2010

Nibbles: Consortium?, Sheep diversity, Sustainable biofuels, Agroforestry, Almonds, Chicken breeding, Restoration, More tree management, Vegetable gardening, Wheat domestication

IRRI tries to raise $300 million for rice in Asia. Including for that genebank of theirs?
Sheep phylogeographic genetic structure weak, but not completely absent, thank goodness.
Examples of sustainable biofuels. No snickering at the back there.
How to manage tree genetic resources under climate change. By some friends.
Almonds 101.
“…testing the genetic and immunological limits of poultry.” And then eating the results.
Grassland restoration needs to take into account functional diversity. And DNA?
Presentation on community forestry management in Niger. Nice story.
Senegalese vegetable farming project uses terra preta but modern seed. Go figure.
Ancient farmers off the hook for loss of key wheat gene. Plant breeders to blame, apparently.

April 21, 2010April 21, 2010

Nibbles: China, Andean roots and tubers, pigs, greenhouse gases, locavores, drought, mapping horticulture, 2010 Growing Green Awards, canker, World Bank, threats, cashmere

China’s role in food price spikes. Books sounds worth reading.
Dutch chefs easily fascinated. Just show ’em an Andean root or tuber.
Much more on that pig domestication story.
Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases agrees its agenda. In New Zealand. Jeremy avoids snarky remark.
New York Times debates locavorism. Someone has to.
Monsanto, DuPont Race to Win $2.7 Billion Drought-Corn Market. Africa says Yay!
If you have an horticultural development project, Horticultural CRSP and GlobalHort want to hear from you.
More environmental awards handed out. Recipients asked to blog.
Chestnuts out of fire?
Data!
Really, who’d be a farmer?
Chinese clone woollier cashmere goats. Why not just clone the wool directly, cut out the middleman?
Tales of maize and tomato hybrids.

April 20, 2010April 20, 2010

Nibbles: Heirloom store, Leaf miners, Mongolian drought, GPS, Coca, Ag origins, Aquaculture, Lice, Bud break in US, IFAD livestock, biofuels, Pig history

“Housed in the towering old 1926 Sonoma County Bank, it’s hard to miss the Seed Bank.” And who would want to anyway.
Of apples, leaf miners and bacteria. Great story.
Best synthesis and analysis of the Mongolian dzud story so far.
Visualize your GPS data! Not agrobiodiversity, I know, but I don’t have another blog.
Coca myths debunked. Sniff sniff.
“Crop domestication and the first plant breeders” book charpter online.
Rebranding Asian carp. Hard row to hoe. Thanks, Don.
190,000 year old clothes had lice. 190,000 year old humans had clothes?
More citizen science stuff, this one on effect of climate change on plant phenology in the US.
IFAD publishes bunch of livestock-related papers. ILRI, are you listening?
“It’s 36 percent more efficient to grow grain for food than for fuel.” Good to have a number.
Boffins do their aDNA thing on Chinese pigs, find continuity, multiple domestication, sweet and sour sauce recipe.
Soil Association begs to differ on that whole UKworld-needs-to-double-food-production thing.

April 19, 2010April 19, 2010

Nibbles: Quasi conservation, Prioritization, Nabhan, Wild sunflower in Argentina, Pests and diseases, Ethiopian honey, African beer, Ash, Camel milk, Livestock conference, Bull breeding, Goldman Environmental Prize, Anastasia

Another nail in the coffin of Cartesian dualism in conservation? Yeah, right. Oooooh, here’s another. What next? Conservation-vs-use to bite the dust?
Now here’s a thing. Priority setting in conservation for plants in Turkey and sheep in Ethiopia. Compare and contrast.
“Bad-ass eco warrior” quoted on … apples.
Invasive species can be good … when they are sunflower wild relatives.
Pests and diseases: “New solutions could include novel resistant cultivars with multiple resistance genes, suitable epigenetic imprints and improved defence responses that are induced by attack.” I’ll get right on that. And more from Food Security.
Rare Ethiopian honey becoming rarer.
Also rare are micro-breweries in Africa. Alas.
Volcano bad for British diet. And Kenyan jobs.
So let them drink camel milk!
Conference on Sustainable Animal Production in the Tropics. Doesn’t sound like much fun? It’s in Guadeloupe!
And, there will probably be photographs of bulls of “stunning scrotal circumference.” Convinced yet?
“Rios won for his work promoting a return to more traditional farming techniques focusing on seed diversity, crop rotation and the use of organic pest control and fertilizers to both increase crops and improve the communist-led island’s environment.”
Our friend Anastasia does Seed Magazine: “Until broader efforts to reduce poverty can take hold, crops with improved nutrients could be very important in reducing death and disease caused by nutrient deficiencies.”