- File under “never too late”: Ireland diversifies its potatoes.
- UK establishes livestock breeds committee. Not concerned about species?
- “All I think of is more and more artemesia,” says shilling millionaire Ugandan farmer.
Out and about: Smithfield Horse Market
This just in from our friend and occasional contributor Danny Hunter out and about in Dublin admiring the agricultural biodiversity on show in a local market.
I walked one minute up the road to the Smithfield Horse Market and was surprised at how big a concern it was. There were horses, ponies and donkeys of all sorts. It was chaotic and pretty much unmanaged. Largely run by and catering for the Traveller community. At one stage there was a bare knuckle fist fight between two brothers apparently. If you missed that you could always go to the van selling videos which had a wide range of DVDs of all sorts of family members, friends and foes slugging it out (among the many road races the Travellers organise in various places). Kids as young as 12 years old were buying and selling! While it is always lovely to be around horses and get some nice shots it all seemed a bit brutal and sad. I liked the scene of the guy with crash helmet and shetland pony walking through the market. After a few hours of sweet fresh horse dung I set off on the Luas for the fresh lungs of Bray and did the 10km coast walk to Greystones.
Nibbles: Branding, dogs
- Commodity branding is older than you think. Via.
- Ancient Scandinavian dogs not like modern Scandinavian dogs.
Weekly helping of potatoes
The Economist seems to have a thing about potatoes this week. There’s a story about how Peru is trying to cash in on its spud heritage. (Note to editor: the olluco is not a type of potato.) There’s a book review, of John Reader’s Propitious Esculent. And there’s even an editorial explaining how the humble tuber is at the root — as it were — of globalization. The International Year of the Potato cannot be over too quickly.
Nibbles: Peas, corn, marama, peaches, bees
- Follow along with the adventures of an amateur pea breeder. Mendel comments: “go for it, girl”.
- And the corn (maize) genome is announced, apparently with recipes. Via.
- Namibians domesticate nutritious wild legume. Mendel comments: “what’s wrong with peas?”
- New Zealand (re)discovers square peaches. Mendel unavailable on this one.
- Honeybee evolution summarized.