Markets

May 23, 2008May 23, 2008

Nibbles: Transport, Sustainability, Breeding, Fruits

Transport infrastructure needs diversity too.
The cases against organics and for GMOs. Deal with it.
[T]he flower looks like an anemic canary spit out by a cat. Deal with it.
The mapood is becoming rare in Thailand. Deal with it.

May 16, 2008May 16, 2008

Nibbles: Tea, Commodity dependence, Wild pigs, Organic ag, Fungus

Tea to get quality standards, geographic indications. Luigi’s mother-in-law unavailable for comment, but would probably say everybody already knows her tea is high quality and where it comes from.
And speaking of Africa and commodities…
Pygmy hog saved from extinction. Pocket pigs deny involvement.
Big write-up of Ryton Organic Garden. Jeremy bound to comment.
Perigord black truffle under threatÂ from Chinese invader. Stock up now.

May 15, 2008May 15, 2008

Nibbles: Tangled Bank, Banana, Films, Biofuels, DOC

Tangled Bank 105 is up. Ag-related: safe fugu bred, and canine genetics. Down boy.
Gene Expression blogs Banana (the book). Interesting comments too.
Indian women make films to protect biodiversity. P’raps they’ll enter our next competition?
US to scale back corn-for-booze subsidy by whopping 12%?
Sardinian saffronÂ to be protected.

May 15, 2008May 18, 2008

Fancy that! Rice plantings up, poppies down

FAO announced a couple of days ago that “Rice production in Asia, Africa and Latin America is forecast to reach a new record level in 2008”. I’m astounded. Imagine that. Farmers respond to higher prices by planting more. And in other press-stopping news, the Corriere della Sera said yesterday that farmers in Afghanistan are abandoning fusty old opium poppies for wheat, lured by a tripling of wheat prices. Right, that’s going to continue.

May 12, 2008May 12, 2008

Nibbles: NUS, Value-added, Values, Genebank, IPR

New Agriculturist focuses on neglected species.
Chocolate, wine… Fellow could have himself a pretty good weekend in Vegas with that lot.
Irish evaluate biodiversity, apparently ignore agriculture.
Sasa schemes to save Scottish landraces.
The Indian Seed and Patent Acts dissected.

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