Markets

May 12, 2008

Cassava around the world

Maybe it was hanging out at CIAT recently, but I seem to see cassava stories everywhere lately. Whether it’s chips for schools in Trinidad, or ethanol production in PNG, or breeding for disease resistance in Uganda, this tuber is everywhere. And don’t even get me started on the cassava revolution happening in Nigeria. International Year of Cassava anyone?

May 7, 2008

Talking about neglected crops

AGFAX Radio was at the recent Arusha meeting on neglected crops and has a whole bunch of interviews online (with transcripts):

Don’t forget the follow-up e-conference is still on.

May 6, 2008May 6, 2008

Nibbles: Insects, EMBRAPA, Prices, Cuba, Supermarkets

Climate change threatens tropical insects and their pollination services.
Brazil rises in world genebank rankings.
Food price crisis advice summarized.
Cuba “sustainable” agriculture at crossroads.
Supermarkets bad for small farmers?

May 5, 2008January 20, 2023

Adding value to Peruvian agricultural biodiversity

I hadn’t known about lucuma yogurt (or yoghurt) before seeing this in Lima. Wikipedia says it’s a popular ice cream flavour. I haven’t tried that, but the yogurt is great.

And speaking of added-value products of agrobiodiversity, how about this: potato chips (or crisps) from a whole range of different weird Peruvian high-altitude varieties:

April 23, 2008April 23, 2008

Nibbles: Hotspots, tea, silk, photos, food prices, basil, AGRA, rice, Denmark, SADC

Economist blogger tells conservationists to stop with the hotspot mapping already, and conserve something. DIVA-GIS developers unavailable for comment.
Some of the tea in China.
Filipinos abandon cannabis for silk. Jeremy comments: you can smoke silk?
Nice tree photos.
FT does the interactive thing with rising food prices. Via. Let them eat pasta, I say.
Wanted: more mid-sized farms to fight The Man.
Watch out world. Mississippi set to industrialise basil production.
Ten reasons AGRA won’t work.
A tale of two rice-growers; how the crop has fared in Brazil and China.
Danes meet to save seeds.
Southern Africans meet to save seeds.

Fresh Nibbles

What has agrobiodiversity ever done for us? Kent Nnadozie of the Plant Treaty lays it out.
Michael Frei of the HealthyDiets4Africa project doesn’t need it laid out.
Neither do the people who awarded a prize to Charlotte Allender of the UK Vegetable Genebank.
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?
Everyone: Potatoes in Florida! Breeders: No problem. NPGS: You called?
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.
Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s a couple of pieces on community seed banks in Guatemala.
Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s the heart-warming story of Welsh organic farmer Gerald Miles.
Meanwhile, the World Vegetable Centre opens a new genebank.
And Türkiye hosts an international, no less, olive genebank.
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.
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.
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.
I bet the ancient Egyptians had pepper. Egyptian archaeologist Mennat-Allah El Dorry lays out what else they had.
Maybe you could lay out world history using pepper. You can definitely do so using cacao and chocolate.
No, not using ancient DNA, but actually…

Published on April 4, 2025