- 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 threat from Chinese invader. Stock up now.
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 saffron to be protected.
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.
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.
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?