Livestock

August 29, 2008August 29, 2008

Nibbles: Amazon, Aquaculture, Bees, ICTs, Food prices, Dates, Cats, Taro

Not so pristine after all.
Farming the sturgeon.
Colony Collapse Disorder 101. And how floral scents affect pollinator behaviour.
Presentation on how mobile phones are changing rural livelihoods.
Urban food gardens to combat high food prices in South Africa. And a different approach in Madagascar.
Getting dates in Saudi Arabia is becoming difficult.
“Winged” cats.
The importance of taro in Hawaii. Thanks, Tevita.

August 28, 2008August 13, 2009

Nibbles: Poppies, Gardening, Milk, Grapes, Genebanks, Meat, Biotech, IK, Plant health

Dropping the poppy.
Gardening on windowsills and along roadsides.
Cooling camel milk. Via.
Fingerprinting grapes.
“The seed banks that are run by agribusiness corporations would be a costly pursuit for the government and farmers.” Where to start responding to this? Thanks, Jeff.
Further evidence of food price crisis.
“What does biodiversity mean to Syngenta?“
Traditional healer goes online. Via.
Videos from Global Plant Clinic.

August 27, 2008August 27, 2008

Nibbles: Small kine, Cedar, Coffee, Cows (again), Niger, Citrus disease

Mini-cows: Cheaper by the pound, but more expensive by the head.
Lebanese icon imperilled.
Birds protect coffee from coffee berry borer.
Cows (m)aligned. Via.
Jessica discovers millet and a grain bank (food, not seed).
A new disease threatens citrus in Florida. Yay!

August 21, 2008November 28, 2017

Nibbles: Honey, Records, Fowl, Fungi

GIS used to manage production and marketing of honey.
Silly season story number 1 and number 2.
Avian flu threatens Turkey’s HacÄ±kadÄ±n chickens.
Lybia has truffles? From the new NWFP-Newsletter((FAO’s link is broken.)).

August 19, 2008June 26, 2009

Special publication on livestock genetic resources

Livestock Science has a special issue on animal genetic resources. Or it will have, it doesn’t seem to be out yet, although some corrected proofs are available. You can get a flavour of the thing with the introduction. Here are some of the highlights:

1. What has agrobiodiversity ever done for us? Kent Nnadozie of the Plant Treaty lays it out.
2. Michael Frei of the HealthyDiets4Africa project doesn’t need it laid out.
3. Neither do the people who awarded a prize to Charlotte Allender of the UK Vegetable Genebank.
4. What has the US National Plant Germplasm System ever done for anyone? The Guardian, the NY Times and NPR News lay it out. I guess someone in D.C. needs it laid out, but will it make any difference?
5. Everyone: Potatoes in Florida! Breeders: No problem. NPGS: You called?
6. Here’s The Guardian again, but this time thinking it is making the case for not putting seeds in the fridge, whereas in fact it’s making the case for the complementarity of ex situ and on-farm conservation.
7. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s a couple of pieces on community seed banks in Guatemala.
8. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s the heart-warming story of Welsh organic farmer Gerald Miles.
9. Meanwhile, the World Vegetable Centre opens a new genebank.
10. And Türkiye hosts an international, no less, olive genebank.
11. And genebanks can be so beautiful, like works of art. Former Tate Modern director Vicente Todolí lays out his citrus samples. I wonder what he could do with olives.
12. Botanic gardens are beautiful and often act a little bit like crop genebanks. Here’s an example from Portugal I stumbled onto recently, I forget how.
13. You know what I’d like to see? An international pepper genebank, that’s what. No, not the kind that might be in those Guatemalan community seedbanks or the WorldVeg genebank. This sort of pepper. Piper pepper.
14. I bet the ancient Egyptians had pepper. Egyptian archaeologist Mennat-Allah El Dorry lays out what else they had.
15. Maybe you could lay out world history using pepper. You can definitely do so using cacao and chocolate.
16. No, not using ancient DNA, but actually…
Published on April 4, 2025