- Take a tour around the world’s most important cacao germplasm collection.
- “[D]iversified systems were more profitable than monocropping,” but read the whole paper. You have 30 days, free.
- Open source science to measure the impact of biochar.
- “Pro-biochar activists can be as silly as these anti-biochar activists.” Well, duh. But thanks for explaining.
- Gehry builds Panama a Museum of Biodiversity, but seems to forget about agriculture.
- Kano’s fish market takes a hit.
- All about rancio.
Nouvelle cuisine
Idaho’s Treasure Valley Farmer-Chef Collaborative sounds like a really cool idea. It brings producers — including producers of some fairly unusual things for Idaho — together with the area’s top restaurateurs. The former get a lucrative market, the latter some interesting new ingredients with which to attract customers. Everybody wins. And speaking of interesting new ingredients, how about goat meat? Apparently, New Yorkers have just discovered it. Fuggedaboutit.
Nibbles: Student, Sea cucumbers, Reindeer, Climate change, Urban beeking, Taro diseases, Markets, Apples
- Adam Forbes updates us on his travels in Ethiopia and Peru in search of seeds. Check out his pix too.
- “…sea cucumber populations across the globe, from Asia to the Galapagos, are increasingly in trouble.” Oh dear.
- Satellites help reindeer herders by looking for snow melt. Sounds very cost-effective.
- IFPRI says agriculture will be “dramatically” affected by climate change. Oh dear.
- Keeping bees in cities.
- All you ever wanted to know about taro diseases. With pic goodness! Via.
- Walking London’s markets.
- Navarre: “276 varieties of autochthonous apple tree have been described.”
Nibbles: Advice, Bees, Chops, Delights
- Students offer organic advice.
- First Beekeeper.
- Mangalista pigs, from Hungarian obscurity to top tables.
- The latest botany carnival Berry Go Round 15 is up.
Visionary carp farming
The Ecologist has nominated its “10 visionaries with 10 big ideas for a better world.” The full article is behind a paywall, but the names are there, and Jimmie Hepburn gets the nod in agriculture.
That was a new name on me, but he and his wife Penny turn out to have become celebrities of a sort in the UK for running an organic aquaculture business in Devon.
“There’s great interest in the fish,” said Jimmie. “The truth is that we have forgotten how to eat fish like carp. In medieval times they were very popular. Now they are usually grown to huge proportions for anglers who take a photo of them and throw them back. Hardly anyone thinks of them as food.”
Congratulations to the Hepburns.