Livestock

Nibbles: Asses, Mapping pathogens, Oysters, Tea, Turkish biodiversity hotspot, Dolmades and sage, Yams festival, Pollen video, Agriculture and mitigation, Rarity, School feeding, Sheep

Jeremy probes into wild asses at Vaviblog.
Mapping the evolution of pathogens. And in kinda related news…
The European oyster needs diversity. Well, natch.
The tree forests of Yunnan, and, concidentally, the story of how the secret of their product got out.
The Kaçkar Mountains at Yusufeli, northeast Turkey are in trouble. Any crop wild relatives there, among the bears and other charismatic megafauna?
Speaking of Turkey, here’s how to make one of its delicacies. But hey, if you don’t have vine leaves, you can use this.
Having fun with yams.
Drori does pollen.
FAO’s Mitigation of Climate Change in Agriculture (MICCA) Project. Any agrobiodiversity-related stuff? Need to explore…
“…conserving species may only require specific activities, such as collect and distributing seeds.”
African school feeding programme uses “local” products. What would Paarlberg say? You can find out here, if you have 90 minutes to spare.
British boffins breed self-shearing sheep. No, really.

NY Times touts heirloom apple book.
Coca Cola to help Haitian mango farmers.
Nature Conservancy launches online Atlas of Global Conservation. No agriculture, natch.
Promoting Mediterranean cheese.

Lots of Indian rice in the IRRI genebank. Any of it being used to develop drought-tolerant varieties?
Lots of journalists in the Tunisian genebank.
How they make coffee in Ethiopia.
How they make popcorn the world over. You sometimes get popcorn (or popped sorghum) with coffee in Ethiopia, now I think of it. And since we’re on an Ethiopian kick, fancy some enjera? Gary Nabhan did.
“Productivity vs. sustainability is a ‘false choice.’” Well I never. And probably not news to these people either, or these. But to these guys?
A Twitter roundup from Embrapa.
Ugly hybrid of two wild strawberries may cause allergies.
Explanation of evolution of doubled genes in wild and cultivated sunflowers certainly causes pain in brain.
Some good climate change news for the Atlantic croaker. Being a glass-totally-empty kinda guy I predict it tastes like shit.

There are no origins in food.
Haitians get seeds. But of what kind(s)? Why not give some of them Carossier palm seeds to plant?
Afghans are incredible cannabis farmers.
Animals need traditional remedies too.

Today’s Daily News section at National Geographic had pieces on a trout genetically modified to be more muscular and a pig genetically modified to be more environmentally friendly. Is there no tweak the boffins will not contemplate?