Markets

February 5, 2009February 5, 2009

Nibbles: Aquaculture, Geographical indications, Arable, Beetlejuice

First Nation takes Canada to court over its salmon stocks. Lawyers exult.
“Radicchio di Verona”, “Zafferano di Sardegna,” “Aceite de La Alcarria” and “HuÃ®tres Marennes OlÃ©ron” protected. Lawyers exult.
Germans to set aside 100 fields to conserve Caucalido-Adonidetum flammeae and the like. That’s arable weeds to me and you. Nobody exults. Oh come on, some of them might be crop wild relatives!
Beetle threatens Florida avocado orchards with deadly fungus. Mexico exults?

February 4, 2009February 4, 2009

Nibbles: Kenya vegetables, Diet diversity, Armyworms

Slumdog Veggiegrower. Via.
Australians contend diets need to be diverse. Another shrimp placed on barbie.
Great summary of the Liberian “armyworm” situation from CABI. And they say taxonomy is boring.

January 28, 2009January 28, 2009

Seed Systems and Agrobiodiversity: The Book

The Dutch ambassador to Ethiopia in his opening speech stressed that a well functioning seed system is crucial for improving food security, increasing agricultural export, and conserving agrobiodiversity.

That’s one enlightened ambassador. He was launching a book, which you can download in its entirety: Farmers, seeds and varieties. Supporting informal seed supply in Ethiopia, edited by Thijssen, M.H., Zewdie Bishaw, Abdurahman Beshir, Walter S. de Boef.

January 27, 2009January 27, 2009

Nibbles: Cotton, Citrus, Fig, Permaculture, Turtles, Wine, Cacao, Fish

Wild cotton use lands prize for boffin trio.
Unesco to protect wild Citrus in India. And read the discussion.
IV International Symposium on Fig.
Permaculture: The Podcast.
The NY Times thinks Americans should eat fewer turtles. And drink more South African wine.
Meanwile, the WSJ gets into single-source chocolate.
Nice map of freshwater fish diversity. But will it last? WWF has a plan.

January 26, 2009January 26, 2009

Nibbles: Mendel, Darwin, Cloves

Mendel was no cheat.
Correspondence between Darwin and Belfast merchant about potato late blight.
Zanzibar clove farming stinks.

1. What has agrobiodiversity ever done for us? Kent Nnadozie of the Plant Treaty lays it out.
2. Michael Frei of the HealthyDiets4Africa project doesn’t need it laid out.
3. Neither do the people who awarded a prize to Charlotte Allender of the UK Vegetable Genebank.
4. What has the US National Plant Germplasm System ever done for anyone? The Guardian, the NY Times and NPR News lay it out. I guess someone in D.C. needs it laid out, but will it make any difference?
5. Everyone: Potatoes in Florida! Breeders: No problem. NPGS: You called?
6. Here’s The Guardian again, but this time thinking it is making the case for not putting seeds in the fridge, whereas in fact it’s making the case for the complementarity of ex situ and on-farm conservation.
7. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s a couple of pieces on community seed banks in Guatemala.
8. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s the heart-warming story of Welsh organic farmer Gerald Miles.
9. Meanwhile, the World Vegetable Centre opens a new genebank.
10. And Türkiye hosts an international, no less, olive genebank.
11. And genebanks can be so beautiful, like works of art. Former Tate Modern director Vicente Todolí lays out his citrus samples. I wonder what he could do with olives.
12. Botanic gardens are beautiful and often act a little bit like crop genebanks. Here’s an example from Portugal I stumbled onto recently, I forget how.
13. You know what I’d like to see? An international pepper genebank, that’s what. No, not the kind that might be in those Guatemalan community seedbanks or the WorldVeg genebank. This sort of pepper. Piper pepper.
14. I bet the ancient Egyptians had pepper. Egyptian archaeologist Mennat-Allah El Dorry lays out what else they had.
15. Maybe you could lay out world history using pepper. You can definitely do so using cacao and chocolate.
16. No, not using ancient DNA, but actually…
Published on April 4, 2025