Livestock

Nibbles: Adaptation, Vegetables, Wood, Allotment, Earthworms, Salmon, Bees, Malaria, Potatoes, Apples

ICRISAT: “The impact of climate change on the yields under low input agriculture is likely to be minimal as other factors will continue to provide the overriding constraints to crop growth and yield.” So that’s all right then.
Book and CD-ROM on African indigenous veggies.
CD-ROM of wood characteristics.
The agrobiodiversity of “…the oldest and largest area of detached town gardens in Britain” being surveyed. Cultivated since 1605. Wow.
Earthworm Week! Yay!
“This is an exciting time for salmon conservation in the Pahsimeroi.”
Hawaiian native bees in trouble. Get in line.
The world has a malaria map. Very cool.
The Canary Islands tries to save its potatoes, sweet and otherwise.
The Forgotten Fruits Summit. You heard me.

Trace chemicals in Chinese dog bones from 7-8K years ago suggest a diet high in millet, and therefore its cultivation.
Maize origins pushed back and down.
A new cowpea system, including faster varieties, being tried out in Niger.
It’s spring, and Italians’ thoughts starting to turn to eating weeds.
“…his 3 wives and 20 children depend on the water melon business as means of livelihood.”

Ethiopia’s Institute of Biodiversity Conservation reminded us today — quoting an IUCN study from last year — that the African Wild Ass (Equus africanus) is critically endangered. Actually the Asiatic Wild Ass is also in trouble. The summary of the findings of the 2008 IUCN Red List of threatened mammals highlights the situation in SE Asia as particularly worrisome. People are clearly going through the data now and pulling out different themes. A few days ago there was an assessment of the state of rabbits, for example. I wonder if we can look forward to an overview of livestock wild relatives?