Remember that story I linked to a while back about how Sikh immigrants to northern Italy are keeping alive the art of making parmigiano? Remember how it was in German? Ok, well, now you can read two versions of it in English. But it’s still pretty cool.
Nibbles: Cuba gardens, Dual purpose pumpkins, GRIN-Global, Wheat belly, Agroforestry, Zambian malnutrition, Libyan agriculture, Certification
- Visit Cuba with boffins of the University of Washington Botanic Gardens. Well that sounds like fun.
- You liked naked oats? Get a load of naked pumpkins. Comments disabled for Manitoba farmers.
- Psst, wanna genebank data management system? Only slightly used…
- Something else you can blame your beer belly on: wheat.
- Have your forest and eat it too.
- Solving malnutrition in Zambia. I wanna know more about those “improved seed varieties.”
- And about these too for that matter: “…ICARDA is urgently sending to Libya seeds of wheat, barley, legume and forage crops for the 2011-2012 cropping season…” Incidentally, any news about the Agricultural Research Centre in Tripoli?
- Forest certification helps nearby Heritage Sites.
Nibbles: Coffee pix, Afghanistan pix, #GROW, #GORTA
- It’s been coffee week at Old Picture of the Day.
- More pictures. Afghanistan’s silk industry this time.
- It’s been #GROW Week too.
- Jess at Gorta. Follow #gorta for live updates.
Protecting Armenian vivifying tea
The Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, commonly referred to as the Matenadaran, is well worth visiting in Yerevan. Some of the manuscripts on display are quite stunning. But apparently there’s more to the place than (very) old books. I bought this Vivifying Flower Tea in the gift shop, and the label refers to a Research Center for Medieval Armenian Medicine.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing online about this research center, but there’s clearly a lot of work around on Medieval Armenian medicine, and the role of plants in it. It’s interesting that the concoction I bought is actually protected by a patent (see the label). That’s a different route to the one taken by India, for example. The tea was in fact pretty good, if a bit expensive, though not, if I am honest, especially vivifying. I wonder if any of takings from the gift shop filters back into conservation, of either the tea’s constituent plants or the manuscripts which hold the secret of its manufacture. I suspect not.
Nibbles: Chickens, Millet adoption, Specialty crops, World Food Day, Migrating forests, Vietnamese pheasants, Yews, High prices, Genebank tour, Climate change conference.
- Why did the Chinese chicken cross the road? To get a new date. For domestication, that is.
- The Indian Farmer is actually three, millet-wise.
- USDA wades into specialty crops. Wonder if one of them is baobab, and a factsheet is involved. Or “small scale grains” for that matter.
- “Life in the countryside is hard.” But fear not, FAO is on it.
- Forests are not migrating. Species are actually undergoing range contraction at both ends. Well that’s weird.
- The first pheasant extinction? Say it ain’t so.
- I like pictures of old trees. So sue me.
- Jess stops traffic.
- Tour a cocoa genebank. Could this catch on?
- International Conference on Climate Change and Food Security (ICCCFS). Not hot air.