Mainstream

November 30, 2014November 28, 2014

Jerry and the Giant Kalo

huge taro

Could not resist reposting (with his permission) this photo of Jerry Konanui that he shared on his Facebook page recently. That’s just the largest taro I’ve ever seen. You can read more about Jerry on the Kupuna Kalo website.

Jerry Konanui is a Native Hawaiian Mahi‘ai (farmer) who gathers, grows, maintains and provides the many varieties of Hawaiian food crops. As a resource person he is called upon to provide hands on workshops on identification of Hawaiian food plants, their varieties, their propagation, cultivation, harvesting, processing and use throughout the Islands.

Oh, and just for good measure, feast your eyes on another impressive aroid photo.

James Joyce and his daughter Lucia in 1932 in Bregenz. (Original at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.)

November 28, 2014November 29, 2014

Nibbles: Quasilocavore, Returning potatoes, Singapore veggies, Floating gardens, Timber trees, Allanblackia, Cranberry glut, Wild turkeys

Sure, eat locally. But not too much.
Andean farmers don’t have much of a choice about eating locally, but at least now they have more potato varieties to choose from.
Growing your own is about as local as you can get in Singapore.
Maybe they should do it the Bangladeshi way.
A list of the world’s commercial timber trees (pdf). Can’t help thinking they should have made more of this.
Which doesn’t include Allanblackia.
Let them eat cranberries.
Wild turkey with that?

November 27, 2014

Nibbles: R&D, Cheese double, Cali candied yams, Sustainable joe, Soy & deforestation, Cereals in Sudan, Big Ag, History of breeding

ASTI says agricultural research investment in Africa is bearing fruit and needs to double.
There’s a cheese revolution going on in America’s heartland.
Meanwhile, the UK is worried about fake goat cheese.
“Apparently, Californians like well-tanned sweetpotatoes.” Well of course they do.
Good coffee AND conservation? I’ll take it.
Soy AND conservation in Brazil? Well, not quite, but good news nonetheless.
Cereal cultivation in Sudan pushed back several hundred years.
What are the conditions for success in large-scale agricultural initiatives? You tell them.
The history of crop improvement 101.

November 26, 2014November 26, 2014

Nibbles: Hunger Games, Nutritious markets, Plant secrets, Nutrition soundbites, Buckwheat panic, Olive oil panic, Cannabis breeding, Wild turkey genetics, Quinoa wars, Domestication infographics, Howard-Yana Shapiro

Do they know it’s Christmas? Stocking-filling books for do-gooders.
Wonder if any of them talk about using markets to deliver nutritious food.
The surprising secrets of baobabs, among other plants. I thought we knew all there was to know about baobabs, what with all those factsheets.
The Global Nutrition Report in 12 sound-bites. No sign of baobabs.
Russians in a tizzy about their buckwheat. If only they’d had a factsheet.
Everybody in a tizzy about European olive oil. Maybe they should try the American stuff?
“When skunk was created the people doing it had no idea they were altering the ratios of CBD and THC — they just kept breeding the plants that gave the strongest high and threw the rest away.” Ouch. But fear not, help is at hand.
Restoring wild turkey populations is screwing up its subspecific structure, pissing off taxonomists no end.
Bolivians do not appreciate cheap Peruvian quinoa. Hipsters unavailable for comment.
No, LA’s wild quinoa is not going to put too much of a dent in global food shortages, nor interest many hipsters, but it’s a fun story. Too bad wasn’t mashed up with the US crop wild relatives prize-winning paper.
Cool crop domestication infographics.
Plant geneticists are from Mars.

November 23, 2014November 23, 2014

Nibbles: Farmers’ markets, Pacific news, Solanaceae news, Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, Tibetan barley, Rice roundup, David Lobell interview, Native American crops, Mesopotamian recipe, Insectophagy, Cities, Land purchases, Dormancy in evolution, Bad news from some crops, Good news from others, Creative Commons at Gates

Hell of a week in the office again, so catching up on accumulated Nibbles on a Sunday. Because we’re here to serve.
Cynical, funny take on farmers’ markets: “No, I don’t save seeds. That’s time-consuming nonsense for backyard gardeners. Yes, I’ve heard of Monsanto. I’m a farmer. I know about goddamn Monsanto.”
Uncynical double from the Pacific: Samoa’s agricultural show and more detail on the aroid breeding work.
High tech breeding of solanaceous crops. Nothing like this for aroids yet, alas. Yeah, but first you have to collect the little blighters.
On the other hand, you also need an awareness of the past. Ask the Tibetans.
And here’s kind of an example of that involving rice in India. Compare with that first Nibble: seed saving not just for backyard gardeners after all? Convinced? Go do it, no, really. Or read Bob Zeigler; you can listen to him too. We could go back and forward on this forever. I know: let’s get some data.
And another example involving wild not-rice in the US and Canada. Though there are some things that haven’t survived quite as well among Native Americans as those wild rice recipes.
And speaking of ancient recipes, here’s one from another wetland, far far away from the above.
Yeah but not all ancient recipes are so resilient, take beetles for example.
Urban farming is big, needs to be bigger.
Meanwhile, agricultural land is being bought up all over the place, for what it’s worth, so maybe cities will be all we have to grow stuff.
International Cocoa Organization calls bullshit on all those chocolate-is-running-out stories.
Maybe we should chill about wine too? I dunno, I think I’d prefer to play it safe with both. Or get help from above. Or from the Fascists.
The banana was going extinct too, wasn’t it?
British apples (and other trees, to be sure) are of course perennially in trouble, but help is on the way, courtesy of Kew. And not just British or apples that get help from that quarter.
“The potato will not only survive climate change, it will help us to survive it as well.” Good news at last.
Mapping cassava, all of a sudden an exciting new crop, if you can believe it. No stopping it now that Bill Gates has called it the world’s most interesting vegetable.
Incidentally, he’s also decided to go totally CC-BY.
And that’s all she wrote. For now.