Nibbles

Nibbles: History edition

No, I don’t think the history of potatoes is at an end, but I know what they mean.
The history of rubber in pics.
The history of the wheat dwarfing gene.
Svalbard makes history.
Sicily goes back into its history for its daily bread.
Another foothold in history for Gary Nabhan.
History, shmistory, we need to look forward. Biohacking is the future of food. Say twelve year olds.

No new salinity tolerance in cereals? You need to look at the right thing.
No new crops? Focus on plants’ sex lives.
No hope for drylands? Look to biodiversity.
No new agricultural land? No problem.
No data on neglected Himalayan crops? Got you covered.
No way you’re drinking coffee from civet droppings? Chemistry to the rescue.
No place for the offspring of F1 hybrids in your agriculture? Go apomictic.
No new fruits left to try? Hang in there.
No diversity in your Aragonese homegarden? There’s a genebank for that.
No impact for your agricultural research. Try clusters.
No agroecological patterning to your crop’s genetic diversity? It’s the culture, stupid.

Peru to give value to its biodiversity.
Germany already has, 500 years ago.
Cavendish bananas have a lot of value, but that won’t save them.
The UK’s vegetables genebank is very valuable.
But you can always add more value to genebank collections if you evaluate them, like IRRI’s going to do in an expensive new building.
I’m not sure what the value of Gold Rush-era heritage trees might be, but I think it’s really cool that someone’s looking for them.
The value of genetic engineering for drought tolerance is just around the corner.