Markets

July 17, 2014July 14, 2014

If life gives you potatoes…

This from the Facebook page of the Consorcio Papas Andinas del Peru.

The caption says:

Pronto, en los mejores Supermercados de Lima, en una edición limitada, de las mejores papas de los Festivales 2012, 2013 y 2014.

That means that these little boxes, featuring the best varieties from recent National Native Potato Festivals, ¹ will soon be available in Lima’s supermarkets. No word on prices, but I suspect some considerable value addition. After all:

Old food the new way — it’s the Peruvian dream of future food.

July 15, 2014July 14, 2014

Nibbles: Custodian farmers, Farming wild species, Museum of Agriculture, GMO maize in Mexico, Organic metareview, Boron tolerance, Date tomato, Cultivated Plant Taxonomy Newsletter, Barcoding Welsh honey

First, find your custodian farmers.
Sure, they can farm wild species too.
Then, get them to produce something cool, sell it, and use the money to preserve some nearby temples.
Oh yeah, but better make sure there’s no GMOs around.
Organic helps. No, really.
Ok, so maybe you have to help them out by breeding for higher boron tolerance or something.
Something like tomatoes that don’t rot. And in French, but with photo.
Make sure the taxonomy is right, though.
And if in doubt, use barcoding.

July 14, 2014July 14, 2014

Brainfood: Landscape preferences, Livestock selection, Romanian conservation, Nordic Horseradish, Social structuring, Darjeeling tea, ZFarming, Pineywoods cattle, Cotton breeding, Neglected veggies

Public preferences for ecosystem-enhancing elements in agricultural landscapes in the Swiss lowlands. People don’t like complex agricultural landscapes as much as they should. Well, in photos anyway.
Some traditional livestock selection criteria as practiced by several indigenous communities of Southern Ethiopia. The selection methods of elders are based on characters that correlate with production and reproduction efficiency. Now there’s a shocker.
Needs and gaps in the conservation of wild plant genetic resources for food and agriculture in Romania. 4 out of 300 useful wild species may need better protection. Sounds like a pretty good score to me.
Genetic diversity in Nordic horseradish, Armoracia rusticana, as revealed by AFLP markers. Each Nordic country has pretty much its own.
How social organization shapes crop diversity: an ecological anthropology approach among Tharaka farmers of Mount Kenya. Diversity of crops and of sorghum landraces is structured socially, with neighbourhood groups being an important organizing principle.
The labor of terroir and the terroir of labor: Geographical Indication and Darjeeling tea plantations. GI has worked because marketing has convinced people that industrial plantations are also idyllic gardens, but the workers know better.
Urban agriculture of the future: an overview of sustainability aspects of food production in and on buildings. You need to work at it.
Long in the Horn: An Agricultural Anthropology of Livestock Improvement. “Livestock as landscape” in the southern US.
Usefulness and Utilization of Indian Cotton Germplasm. Need to try chemical and physical mutagenesis as well as bring in new diversity from abroad. Do I detect a slight whiff of desperation?
Potential and biodiversity conservation strategies of underutilized or indigenous vegetables in Himahal Pradesh. Improve provision of planting materials, management practices, harvesting methods, post-harvest , marketability, nutritional status and policies and legal frameworks. Really? Is that all? I suspect anyone into NUS could have told you that before you even went into the field.

July 13, 2014July 12, 2014

Nibbles: Millet festival, Seed eBay, Fonio frenzy, Kenya mangoes, Barbed wire, Potato diversity, Peruvian cuisine, Feeding Haiti, Shea paradox, Prosopis review, Nigerian genebank, COGENT meeting, IRRI genebank, Big Data on diseases, Genomics at UBham

There’s a millet festival in Chennai on 20 July. Any of our readers planning to go?
“…the first ever, non-profit “eBay” of seed…” And you can contribute, if you like. With money, that is. I wonder if there will be a festival at some point.
Fonio gets the Mail treatment (but no festival). Will it ever recover? Maybe this will help. For the record, it may have been the The Guardian that started this fonio frenzy. Anyway, here are the collections, if you think you’d like to contribute to the revolution. Like by organizing a festival. But why stop at fonio…
Sometimes, however, exotic is better: like mango in Kenya. There’s plenty of mango festivals (and a new genebank too) in India, but not in Kenya, as far as I know.
BBC radio programme on the history of barbed wire. Fascinating.
Not to be outdone, DW on potato agrobiodiversity, including the CIP genebank. Wow, in Spanish too. Ah, but do any of them have high levels of B-9 vitamin? No? I know someone who can change that.
More to Peruvian cuisine than potatoes, though. I feel a festival coming on.
Food aid vs agriculture in Haiti. Nothing to celebrate there.
Someone mention hard choices? Shea harvesting in Ghana presents a conundrum too.
What can I tell you about Prosopis? Some are good, others not so much.
I guess the same could be said for Solanums.
Around the world in 20 food photos. No festivals? Well, I think Ramadan qualifies.
“I have told you that NACGRAB would have been in a mess without the support of WAAPP.” Head of Nigerian genebank tells the world like it is.
Coconut genebank managers tell each other like it is.
Rice genebank makes an impression, visitor tells the world.
I suppose we should have at least one Big Data thing, right? Make that two. But that’s all you get.
Ok, then, one last one: diseases, genomics and, of course, football.

July 7, 2014June 23, 2014

Brainfood: One Thai rice landrace, Adding value to coffee, Dairy cattle in Mexico, Sugarcane core, Bermudagrass salinity, Developing the Tibetan plateau, Amazon oil palm, Pollinator diversity

Natural and human-mediated selection in a landrace of Thai rice (Oryza sativa). There is selection, but that’s counteracted by exchange and diverse agronomic practices. The result is diversity, but structured.
Trademarks, Geographical Indications and Environmental Labelling to Promote Biodiversity: The Case of Agroforestry Coffee in India. Adding value locally is the only way to stop a really lucrative cash crop destroying the forest.
Characterization of dairy cattle germplasm used in Mexico with national genetic evaluations in importing and exporting countries. Bringing in diversity from another country is not always the best approach.
Phenotypic characterization of the Miami World Collection of sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) and related grasses for selecting a representative core. 300 accessions will do. That’s a bit more than 10% of the total.
Genetic variation of salinity tolerance in Chinese natural bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.) germplasm resources. There is some. Good for all those golf courses.
The sustainable development of grassland-livestock systems on the Tibetan Plateau: problems, strategies and prospects. There are 19 things to do, and genetic resources are important across the board.
Status and prospects of oil palm in the Brazilian Amazon. On already deforested land, for biofuel. What could possibly go wrong?
Bee Species Diversity Enhances Productivity and Stability in a Perennial Crop. That would be the highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum). Can we take this for granted now?