Livestock – Page 314 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

October 7, 2008October 7, 2008

Nibbles: Cacao, Pamphlets, Breadfruit, Goats, Milk, Economic drivers, Truffles

Cacao comes inÂ 10 “flavours”, not just 3.
PDFs of pamphlets on different aspects of agricultural biodiversity from FAO.
Diane Ragone interviewed on breadfruit.
Something for the weekend, Mr Goat?
Got yak milk?
High livestock prices mean lots of livestock on the land means low biodiversity on farmland. Here comes the science.
NatGeo video on the trouble with truffles.

October 4, 2008

Nibbles: Meat, Meet

Visayan warty piglet eaten. Python blamed.
Biodiversity and Agricultures: Todayâ€™s Challenges, Tomorrowâ€™s Research for More Sustainable Farmingâ€. Can’t wait for November 5th.

October 3, 2008October 3, 2008

Nibbles: Heirlooms, Seed, Ethnic cuisine, Meat, Sheep

“The ‘Heirloom Tomato Salad’ was made with a mix of Sweet 100 and Sungold tomatoes — both of which are hybrid varieties.”
FARMER’S NOTEBOOK: The importance of preserving native seed varieties.
Increasing culinary diversity in the US.
Eat a kangaroo and save the planet. No? How about moose then? You can have too much culinary diversity, perhaps.
Climate change: the silver lining.

October 2, 2008October 2, 2008

Nibbles: Polyploids, Testicular cooking, Genes, Mongoose, Pears

Parade of Polyploids! I know, but that’s what it says on the site.
Balls.
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant: The Joy of Genes … Illustrated. Teachers, use it!
How mongooses got to Spain.
Pears that look like apples.

September 29, 2008September 29, 2008

Nibbles: Tamarind, Fire, Aquaculture

A single tree that is also a genebank? Holy tamarind.
Looking to kangaroo bones for evidence of Aboriginal terraforming.
African fish farming links. Via.

1. Ancient farmers didn’t have to wait for the genetic diversity that made domestication possible. They selected from variation already present in wild plants, including the ancestors of rice and maize. Domestication was as much about spotting (or happening upon) useful differences as creating new ones.
2. English colonists in America called Indigenous dogs “wolves,” revealing as much about colonial perceptions as about the animals themselves. This history of Indigenous dogs shows how unfamiliar animals were classified through peculiarly European ideas about wildness.
3. Austria is bringing forgotten apple varieties back to life. Saving old varieties in genebanks is one thing: getting people to grow, sell and eat them is another, but it can be done. Or at least tried.
4. Jordan’s olive-oil heritage centres on traditional varieties such as Nabali and ancient Rumi trees, but most production is consumed locally, leaving exports limited and making provenance, cultivar and harvest date important indicators for buyers. Compare and contrast with Austrian apples.
5. Small island developing states have distinctive food cultures and ingredients, but face particular challenges in building sustainable and resilient food systems. FAO’s A Taste of SIDS explores the connections between island food, biodiversity and culinary heritage. Nice to see diversity within crops considered, though a few local variety names would have been nice.
Published on October 21, 2026