- Aussies test perennial wheat. Luigi asks: should they be growing wheat at all?
- What is the world’s most obscure crop? The Archaeobotanist makes his case: Spodiopogon formosanus Rendle.
- Tourism does for “red rice.”
- “The Wonjoku family in Muea was renowned for the manufacture of hoes, cutlasses, knives, chisels, spears, axes, brass bangles, brass spindles and tools for uprooting stumps of elephant grass.”
- Nestlé says its new R&D centre in Abidjan will help it source high-quality raw materials of cocoa, coffee and cassava locally, “which in turn will raise the income and the quality of life of local farmers.” Hope conservation gets a look-in.
Nibbles: Liberia
US readies itself for Roquefort flood
The iniquitous 300% tariffs imposed by the last administration on Roquefort cheese are to go. The sterling campaigning efforts of the Société Roquefort have thus been deservedly rewarded. Good news for American cheese lovers. And Occitan shepherds. Let agrobiodiversity and its products be free!
Nibbles: Tsetse, Warty pumpkins, Cattle origins, Crop mobs
- Tripping up trypanosomiasis: “It is a poverty fly.”
- Pumpkin patent squashed: “This is like trying to patent all trees with twisted limbs.”
- Indonesian bovines fingerprinted: “…the famous ‘racing bulls‘ from Madura descended from banteng cows.”
- Cropmobbing. Sounds like fun. Via.
Kava future bright, but not yet
Mental Floss has a longish, well-informed post on kava in Vanuatu, accompanied by some nice photos. You may remember a post I did a couple of years ago now during the last attempt to clear the drink’s name in Europe. Seems like only yesterday. Anyway, this got me wondering whether kava exports to Europe from places like Vanuatu and, in particular, Fiji had indeed resumed. It seems not, but, according to a recent piece on Radio Australia, the prospects for the Fiji kava industry look reasonable. Or at least they did in January, before the latest round of political uncertainty.