- Fair trade Haitian mangoes hit the shelves.
- Molecular boffins use nifty new toys to re-write rice history. Until the next time.
- The genebank of the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture in Dubai has found material suitable for, ahem, saline agriculture.
- The genebank of the Indian Institute of Spices Research in Calicut has a large collection of, ahem, spices.
- The downside of tilapia.
- And, speaking of fish, it’s not all bad news.
Nibbles: Food production, Mauka
- “A new initiative to help pastoralists and smallholder farmers cope with the twin pressures of drought and climate change.” Yes, but what is the initiative going to do?
- Rhizowen gets mawkishly paternal about his mauka.
Brainfood: Biotechnology, Pollinators, Mulberries, Rice blast, Locavores, Roselle, Cassava, Protected areas, Traditional vegetables, Vitis, European diversity
- Agricultural biotechnology for crop improvement in a variable climate: hope or hype? Your guess is as good as mine.
- Pollinator insects benefit from rotational fallows. They do indeed.
- Biological and productive characteristics of silkworm mulberry varieties of different ploidy and their use for raising silkworms in different seasons. Amazing; more silk faster from polyploid mulberries.
- Mapping quantitative trait loci conferring blast resistance in upland indica rice (Oryza sativa L.). They’re there.
- Food relocalization for environmental sustainability in Cumbria. Fair enough, but what, actually, are the locavores going to eat?
- Relationships among twelve genotypes of roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) cultivated in western Mexico. Twelve genotypes split into two groups, could be important for breeding and production.
- Variation in qualitative and quantitative traits of cassava germplasm from selected national breeding programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. There is some, but not for everything.
- Global protected area impacts. There are some, but not everywhere.
- Diversity, geographical, and consumption patterns of traditional vegetables in sociolinguistic communities in Benin: Implications for domestication and utilization. 245 species, only 19% cultivated, with big differences among ethnic groups and geographical areas. Research and promotion needs identified.
- Observed trends in winegrape maturity in Australia. 1.7 days earlier per year for 1993–2009, 0.8 days earlier per year for 1985–2009.
- Still a lot of diversity out there, Europe edition: common bean in Sicily, melons near Madrid.
Nibbles: Plectranthus, Roads, Fast food, Dog food, Hybrid rice, Mapping climate change, Turf, Cassava, iPhone app, Zizania, Rice
- Livingstone potato (Plectranthus) on the menu in Burundi. Yeah but what does it taste like?
- The world’s roads mapped. About time too.
- The world’s convenience food made better. Maybe.
- Dog cooking pot from ancient China. Woof. Via.
- Hybrid rice backfires. Via.
- Mapping the impacts of climate change. Only country level though.
- Native lawns better. But are they greener?
- JSTOR does a cassava roundup despite hating tapioca.
- Biodiversity monitoring? There’s an app for that.
- Wild rice (not a wild relative of rice, mind, but sacred to the local Native Americans) vs the copper-nickel mining industry.
- Slideshow on rice (the real thing) in Vietnam.
Refocus Afghanistan’s agriculture
We’ve occasionally, and perhaps too timidly, mentioned the futility of attempts to eradicate Papaver somniferum in Afghanistan. The crop is ideally suited to the terrain, and the product lucrative and in short supply globally. Also, illegal, at least in Afghanistan. But not in France, India or Australia. Over at Lawyers, Guns and Money, a group blog, Charli Carpenter makes a well-linked and well-argued case for reframing Afghanistan’s poppy problem (or, perhaps more accurately, the West’s problem with Afghanistan’s poppies) as an opportunity to improve global public health. One thing she doesn’t mention — and why would she? — is that poppies would probably be a lot more sustainable than most of the alternatives, needing less water and less land than, say, wheat or vegetables, and almost certainly displacing less local agricultural biodiversity.
h/t Sam Zeitlin