- Plants for Europe is (are?) incensed about new EU regulations. Should it/they be?
- Squash is a Native American word, natch. I bet they’re incensed.
- Speaking of Native American crops, here’s a big writeup on the potato, including great pix, and nice shoutout for the CIP genebank.
- If you live in the tropics and want to learn about agroforestry, you could just go out and talk to the first smallholder you meet. Or you could read a textbook.
- A roundtable on whether genetics can help us figure out whether wine is good for you. When they do the large scale clinical trial, as they surely must, I’ll be first in line.
- The breakthroughs of agriculture. Sadly, working out the seed viability equation does not feature. Nor does vegetarianism.
- Breeding does, though. And here’s an example why, featuring soybeans.
- And another from rice: IRRI bags another silver bullet gene.
- And we’ll soon have those in cotton too.
- Which is all fully recognized in the latest WRI report on how to feed the world.
- Though not in this other mega-report on Brazil, at least not quite so explicitly.
- “We need more research” is the wrong answer. Even when it’s breeding?
Nibbles: ICRISAT award, SIRGEALC awards, Food etymology, Black carrot, Bolivian potatoes, NASA weirdness, Mexican maize, Rice 2.0, Vaccinium
- Dr Upadhyaya Goes to Tampa.
- SIRGEALC participants get prizes too. Maybe one of them can tell us about it.
- First uses of various food words.
- Punjab Black Beauty set to take the carrot world by storm.
- Bolivia conserves its potato relatives. When will it ratify the ITPGRFA and share the love?
- NASA going to grow plants on the Moon. What could possibly go wrong.
- Free trade apparently threatens maize and Mexican culture. I personally think both can take it. They’ve been going for a while.
- You know, I just have no idea what this silly piece about rice in Africa is trying to tell me. Maybe you can figure it out and let me know.
- Celebrating the cranberry.
Nibbles: Intensive livestock, Genetic erosion, Genetic diversity … in India, NUS, Domestication, Seminars, Nutrition, Prince of Wales
With sincere apologies for the lack of service. It’s just been that kind of week. For both of us.
- “[H]ow a powerful and intransigent agriculture lobby has successfully fought off attempts to reduce the harmful environmental and health impacts of mass livestock production.” Say it isn’t so.
- “[A] planet that has lost 75% of its plant genetic diversity between 1900 and 2000.” Mythbusters? FAO don’t need no stinkin’ mythbusters.
- Here’s a little historical context for ya, on Seed Collection and Plant Genetic Diversity, 1900–1979
- Striving to gain insights into agro-biodiversity through surveys in Bijapur, India will doubtless add, er, something.
- Round up the usual NUSpects:
- And the unusual: Alpine rice, aka Microlaena stiphoides, a newly domesticated grass down under.
- You want more on domestication? AoB blog has you covered, with pointers to wheats and the artichoke cardoon nexus.
- A little learning … Is a wonderful thing?
- Functional agrobiodiversity in North-West Europe: What does the future hold? 11 December, Brussels.
- Improving agriculture’s impact on under-nutrition: What do we know and what do we need to know? 27 November, London.
- EndingHunger Online University. Seriously, everyone’s an expert now.
- Cynical, moi? Not compared to the guy who wrote Implausible results in human nutrition research. Definitely one to cut out, boil lightly, season, and eat.
- Speaking of cynics, “The Prince of Wales writes passionately about the future of farming and the countryside in this week’s Country Life, which he has guest-edited on the occasion of his 65th birthday.”
You really can’t make this stuff up.
Nibbles: Dog fight, Deforestation maps, CWR maps, Food fight, Limpopo, Maize uses, CC adaptation breeding, Global Tree Campaign, Intensification & deforestation, American ginseng, Fish & crop yields, Fish oils, Perennially watching annual grains
- A third take on dog origins. Lock them all up in a small room and don’t let them out until they figure out a way to solve this. And more.
- Great new maps of deforestation. Same as the old maps? I’m confused.
- Ah, to be able to mash them up with crop wild relatives gap-maps! Or others, for that matter…
- Clear, balanced take on how to fix the food system. (And a great potted summary of why it is necessary to do so by the sainted Lawrence Haddad. The interviewer is not bad either.) Except maybe for the bit which sort of implies that the only way to improve crops is via GM. And for the other side…
- Bioversity comes up with a strategy for community seed banks in Limpopo and other areas of South Africa. Coincidentally, another CGIAR report on the same region, looking at wider food security issues. I wonder if the two could/should be mashed up? But really my main reason for linking to the second thing is to see how many people read the title as a plea for a return to old-fashioned cartography, as I did.
- Dual-purpose maize, shmaize. I just love that building.
- Latin American consortium looking for potatoes and wheat varieties adapted to new climatic conditions. Amazing that it is news, in a way.
- Global Tree Campaign launches new website. Sill no RSS feed though, that I can see. LATER: Here’s the feed, sorry to the GTC!
- Speaking of trees… Will agricultural intensification save tropical forests? Well, maybe. Demand elasticity comes into it, apparently. Dismal science indeed. I suppose those maps above come in useful for this kind of thing?
- In other news, the Middle Tennessee State University has a ginseng initiative.
- Teach a woman to aquaculture, improve her crop yields. No wait: Fish? We don’t need no stinking fish.
- 10 Ancient Grains to Watch. The usual suspects. This was pretty boring even when it was news.
Nibbles: Crop rotation, Nutrition, Rice podcast, Climate change meet, Sustainable diets seminar
- “Always rotating, regardless of prices, is close to optimal.” Not what you think. Or maybe it is. Robust economic reasons for not planting the same annual crop two years running.
- Got any data about nutrition and biodiversity? FAO wants them.
- Fuller and McCouch on the origins of rice. Audio goodness only.
- The first of many video updates on #COP19. Gonna be a long couple of weeks.
- And no, I don’t think a UN Nutrition and Sustainability Seminar will help much in that respect, but you can follow that too at #sustfoodsystems. Or is it #sustdiets?