- Pickling facts.
- Trouble for the French oyster.
- Grow-your-own hops.
- Saving the coconut crab.
- Korea launches website of traditional recipes. Looks great, but all in Korean, alas.
- Our friend Karen Williams’ work on agrobiodiversity conservation in Ecuador highlighted.
Report on the future of inland fisheries in Central Asia is out
This is what’s happened to inland fisheries pretty much throughout Central Asia since the fall of the Soviet Union:
According to an FAO report just out, that is. There’s some limited scope for optimism, though.
Somewhat belatedly, attention is now being focused upon the reactivation of the fisheries sector with the emphasis very much on aquaculture as it is unlikely even in the Caspian Sea that capture fishery could ever again assume the same importance as in yesteryear. Led by private entrepreneurs, and with the active prompting of national fisheries departments and foreign donors, fisheries are being slowly restored to the developmental agenda. This is no easy task, given both the general failure to recognize the role the sector can play in national development and poverty alleviation strategies and the continued lack of legislative clarity, although the latter is gradually being rectified in a number of the countries.
It will be interesting to see whether any recovery is based on a reasonable foundation of fish diversity (Kazakhstan has 150 fish species), or just the usual one or two aquaculture suspects.
Nibbles: Red rice, Drought squared, Slow Food, Coffee, Cassava, Horses, Wheat, Ketchup
- Saving red rice in India. Note comment from Bhuwon.
- India again: “We have not been able to sow rice. Our corn crop has been destroyed by pests. We have nothing to eat. We have nothing to feed our cattle.”
- Morocco: “The farmers started using more subterranean water, but that has almost been used up, putting us on a straight line to desertification.” But, “[r]esearchers have also introduced new varieties of grain that in laboratory tests have proven resistant to water stress or drought.”
- Another Slow Food interview. Zzzzzzzzzz.
- Cuppa weird joe?
- IITA and others save cassava in West Africa.
- Nice photo essay on a thoroughbred stud farm.
- Take the wheat quiz.
- Where is our heirloom ketchup?
Nibbles: Water buffalo, Distillation, Salmon, Banana, Stem rust, Red rice
- Great photo-essay on the water buffalo.
- A renaissance of gin production in London. Cheers!
- Not bad photo essay on the salmon migration.
- Special issue of Ethnobotany Research & Applications on banana domestication.
- Afghanistan readies for Ug99. Because it doesn’t have enough problems already.
- Saving red rice. Note comment from Bhuwon.
Nibbles: Fisheries, Mangroves, European bison, Dormouse, Eating & drinking heirlooms, Apios, Kombucha, Organic and health
- Donwload a guide to sustainable sushi.
- It was World Mangrove Day last Sunday. Who knew.
- Poland/Belarus’s Bialowieza Primeval Forest and its bison threatened by climate change, politics.
- Endangered dormouse found crossing highway, but is it the edible sort beloved of the Romans?
- “Endangered heritage breeds have one saving grace: They’re generally tasty.” Even in cocktails.
- Radix gets to grips with Apios americana. Good luck!
- Did someone say fermentation?
- Did someone say single-issue bores?