- One crazy French guy, 1134 tomato varieties.
- The World Coffee Research International Multi Location Variety Trial really gets off the grounds. See what I did there?
- The Basques descend from Neolithic farmers.
- Ancient Sri Lankan irrigation systems. Which Bangladesh doesn’t need.
- National Heirloom Expo is on.
- Did we link to this three-trillion-tree story yet? I don’t think so. How many are edible fruit trees, I wonder?
- …or indeed agroforestry and fertilizer trees. Always worth listening to Jules Pretty.
- So much for the Paleolithic Diet.
- In agricultural innovation, “optimal IPR use depends on the technology itself as well as on market conditions.”
- Multinational food companies found to be short-sighted shock.
- The global impacts of UK food consumption.
- The Wheat Initiative has an agenda.
- Can you recognize these crops? ‘Course you can.
- Eggplant pre-breeding project involving wild relatives makes mainstream media. Faith in humanity restored. Until you see what else is on that page.
- Drought hits Ethiopia. Let them eat sweet potatoes?
Nibbles: Genebank videos, Genebank QMS, Leakey vid, Oz Oryza, Plant ID app, CGIAR saga, PNG food crisis, Impressive melons, Quinoa, Asian sheep diversity, Kenyan CSA
- Nice video on the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew. Compare and contrast with Ft Collins. Or CIAT’s genebank for that matter.
- Quality video on quality management systems in genebanks. No doubt followed to the letter by the three above.
- Video of webinar by Roger Leakey explaining how trees will save us: “The Global Food Crisis: Can we Heal a Divided and Ailing World?”
- Collecting wild rice in Australia. No video, alas, but nice pics.
- App to identify plants for leaves. If ever a video was needed…
- The latest on the CGIAR re-re-structuring. Hollywood interested, I’m told.
- Meanwhile, El Niño beginning to affect PNG.
- Which doesn’t stop a watermelon going for thousands in Japan.
- Hope El Niño doesn’t affect Colombia’s plans to stuff it to poor Bolivian quinoa farmers.
- Enough plants already. Asian sheep more diverse than previously thought, thanks to both migration from Fertile Crescent and indigenous development and back-dispersal.
- Not to mention “Surprising ways Kenyans are embracing climate-smart agriculture“.
Nibbles: German zucchini, Nice tomatoes, Genebank Database Hell, Pakistan genebank, Brachiaria genomics, Haiti agriculture, Chinese potatoes, Green green grass of home, Domestication book, Rudisha returns!
- Deadly zucchini sweep through Germany. Actually just one possible hybrid with ornamental squash, apparently, probably, I’m told by a vegetables expert.
- Everybody loves photos of heirloom tomatoes.
- Sorting out genebank data management at IRRI.
- It’s very tricky to move the Pakistan national genebank.
- Where are the Al-resistance genes in Brachiaria?
- Le jardin créole in Haiti as a model of sustainable agriculture.
- China’s spud revolution. And more.
- Grass is America’s biggest crop. Tell me something I don’t know. What’s that you say? Not that kind of grass?
- Nice excerpt on cats from recent book on domestication by Richard C. Francis.
- The plant-based diets of East African long-distance runners.
Nibbles: Plant names, Tomato trifecta, Amaranth, Corn wars, Wild lettuce, Dying, Indian ag, Chocographic, Root symbionts, Rehabilitation, Mesquite, Extreme weather, Saviour plants, Pawpaw, Japanese rice, Coffee museum, Caribbean early ag, Amazonian livelihoods, Vislak on corn
- In praise of common names. Meh. You won’t see a Latin name in this whole Nibbles. See how you like it.
- Building a tomato. In Spanish.
- Tracking a tomato.
- The dark side of tomatoes.
- Amaranth to rescue Mexicans from obesity.
- Seeds of contention.
- Finding the lost Least Lettuce.
- Indigo goes back to the future.
- What if the monsoon fails? MS Swaminathan has some answers.
- Nice chocolate infographic from FAO.
- A diverse microbial community in and around roots helps plants thrive. The Science article is behind a paywall, but there’s a helpful infographic on Twitter.
- The US has a National Seed Strategy for Rehabilitation and Restoration. Vision? The right seed in the right place at the right time. Wish I’d thought of that.
- When otherwise useful trees attack. Ah, the irony of this coming right after the previous one.
- UK’s Global Food Security programme says extreme weather events are increasing and we must adapt agriculture. Good to know.
- And today’s Five Plants That Will Save the World are…
- Maybe add pawpaw to that?
- Japanese rice farmers: change gonna come.
- Nice coffee museum in Brazil.
- Early agriculture in the Caribbean: Cuba and Trinidad.
- The babaçu breakers of Maranhão are under threat. What’s babaçu? Yeah, well, look it up.
- “Seed banking began about 30 years ago as an improvement to individual farmers storing and using their own seeds.” Riiiiight.
- That Vilsak is a card.
Report on farming in Tanzania
Vel Gnanendran heads the Tanzania office of DFID, the UK’s Department for International Development. He recently decided to find out as much as he could about agriculture in Tanzania, and his report is an interesting read. Here’s part of his conclusion:
Farmers operate in a world of tremendous uncertainty. What will the world price of the crop be when it comes to harvest time? Will government policy be the same next season? Will the rains come this year? What is the cost benefit of investing in seeds and fertilisers? And, related but hardest of all, will someone buy the crop at a decent price? I have a degree in economics, but this is akin to applied quantum game theory.
Global markets and prices are important, for sure, but it would be good to see a little more emphasis on supply food to local markets, rather than seeing agriculture purely as oriented to global markets.