- Genebank saves beer!
- Not so fast…
- So, lets get back to basics shall we, and the dawn of brewing, recreated (again).
Nibbles: Trees, Gates on CG, Gardens, NUS surveys, GMOs, Free range livestock, Tasty fish, Traditional potatoes
- Britain gets a tree seed bank. Wait, it didn’t already have one? St Helena seems to, sort of. And Cameroon. And why they’re needed more than ever; and more. Although in Brazil trees can be the bad guys.
- Bill Gates praises CIMMYT, and the CGIAR as a whole.
- A Renaissance garden recreated in NYC.
- A survey on moringa. And one on achocha and oca.
- And speaking of deconstructing weird crops, how about saffron?
- Yet another one of those GMOs-are-not-as-bad-as-you-think pieces. Is any of this getting through, I wonder?
- Free range pigs in Kenya and the USA.
- Speaking of free range livestock… Well, a species distantly related to livestock anyway. Oh, and here’s another restoration story, from another continent.
- Free range glass eels too. And salmon, after a fashion.
- Traditional potatoes in fancy Lima restaurants. Maybe with pork or fish?
Nibbles: SRI in Indonesia, SRI in Nepal, Diversity in GMO review, Climate change fears, Ancient grind in China
- System of Rice Intensification increases yields, not incomes, because it takes time away from other jobs. Caveats apply.
- Which does not deter Rajendra Uprety, an SRI activist, in Nepal, where rice farmers “hydridize technology”.
- In reviewing the global march of GMOs, a plea for policies to promote “much more crop diversity”. Well of course we agree.
- US food company executives fear “weather extremes” more than anything else in 2013.
- The same fears may have driven Chinese people to food processing 23,000 years ago. A grind not being able to access the PNAS paper.
Nibbles: GMO promises promises, African livestock outside & in, Vegetables galore, Farmer videos from US & Sri Lanka, Fermentation beery & otherwise, Yam people & traits, Botanic garden diversity, ECPGR, CWR in US & Benin, Herbarium data, Baobab info, Olean info, Pix, Indian cooking
- Nature “celebrates” 30 years of GMOs.
- African pastoralists know how not to destroy their livelihoods shock.
- African urban dwellers keep livestock shock.
- Vegetables can be perennial too. Oh yes indeedy. Not bitter gourd though, alas. Nor cucumber. And in other news, there’s a Bitter Melon Council. And also a campaign to promote zucchini in Iowa.
- Climate change reaches farmers in the Pacific NW. Can their Sri Lankan colleagues be far behind?
- Always good to have a beer story. Well, maybe not.
- Speaking of fermentation, this WSJ piece looks interesting, from the two sentences of it I can read. No, wait. Oh crap, try this.
- A hummus dip goes really nicely with beer. Is this the quinoa story again?
- A yam conference for the ages. Will they discuss the new trait ontology?
- Botanic gardens reach out. Genebanks next? Maybe not.
- You mean like the European ones, perhaps?
- That US CWR paper from the horse’s mouth. And a similar thing from Benin. But where does all that data come from?
- Baobab notes to go with all those factsheets.
- The Saharan olive needs a factsheet too. IRD obliges.
- Cool set of agriculture photos.
- A couple of different views of Indian food. Thanks to Cara de Silva and Diana Buja.
Nibbles: Chickpeas, Cassava, Maize diversity, Potato diversity, Palm display, Global mistrust, Asparagus, Ramps, Local strawberries
- Chickpea harvest more than doubled last year – in the US. Whatever happened to garbanzos?
- Introduction to cassava and cyanide.
- Conserving maize diversity in Guatemala.
- And potato diversity in Peru.
- Historical insights into Kew’s museum display of an economically important palm.
- Mainstream media still confused about Svalbard and all that.
- Asparagus is topologically artichoke. The Botanist in the Kitchen continues her exploration of bracts.
- Linguist ramps up his knowledge of the Alliums. (See what I did there? Nothing remarkable, almost everyone else succumbs too.)
- It takes real research to grow food locally, ask the scientists in Arkansas. And their supporters.