Nibbles

Nibbles: Pumpkin beer, Food security, SDGs, Wild rice, Grape, Wild Helianthus

Pumpkin beer is an abomination, early, late or right on time.
The best thing about India’s National Food Security Act is that it now includes millets and other “coarse” grains, which gets barely a mention in How secure is India’s National Food Security Act?.
Calling BS on the SDGs.
If they’re planting it, can it be truly “wild” rice? Cultivation vs domestication: discuss.
AoB blog investigates a popular but little-known grape variety.
What is it about crop wild relatives all of a sudden. Now it’s sunflowers.

The land sparing vs sharing debate encapsulated in a controversy over San Francisco oyster farming.
Bitter is good.
BBC’s Farming Today on saffron in England, among other things.
Want sustainable development? Invest in agriculture.
Growing weed: here comes the science.
“When you chew on a Camembert rind, you’re eating a solid mat of mold.” And probably GM to boot.
Why do I sound so totally unprepared?
Breeding better blueberries.

So there’s a “celebrity pork expert.” No, not David Cameron, Carl Blake.
Nevermind about resurrecting pig breeds, how about resurrecting “America’s best tomato“?
Mapping biofortification outreach.
CG writes letter to heads of state on SDGs. But will they listen?
How they store wine in Georgia.
US needs more veggies. Don’t we all.
Kenya is a nutrition star.
The Equator Prize 2015 winners are in.
Article on wheat illustrated with picture of millet labelled sorghum

Getting the right seeds to Nepali farmers.
An organic farmer visits the Vavilov Institute.
Conservation: beyond hotspots, beyond markets.
Letting the market deal with insect foods.
Hybrids 101.
Tamil Nadu women millet farmers show us all how it’s done. In Milan.
Climate change? Let them eat rice bean.
End of an era at the Land Institute.
And the biggest environmental footprint goes to…lamb.
Drought tolerance: a geneticist explains.
International wheat meeting in the news.
How does the European seed industry support crop diversity conservation and use? Let me map that for you.

Luther Burbank “…was willing to cross just about anything that had leaves…”
No, rice did not originate in northern Australia. Not in the sense those words are usually used.
Aussies to embrace cannabis. But not in the sense those words are usually used.
Australian exporters nuts for more than just macadamia. Ah, interdependence…
Meanwhile, Ethiopian teff exporters licking their lips in anticipation.
Kew is bigger than the sum of its parts.
Cherokee Nation genebanker gets award.
Yes, BBC, vegetables exist, let’s move on.
Maize Lethal Necrosis on its last legs? Well, “progress is being made” at any rate.
The Economist’s daily chart is on declining fish stocks. Why have they gone all warm and fuzzy lately? Something in the zeitgeist?
Inuit are genetically adapted to their fishy diet.
Damn it, I lost! Probably fixed.
Africa sets up a new institution for food security. Which is not the same as hunger, we are told. But is it malnutrition.
ICIPE scales up and out. More impact than any “new institution” is going to achieve.
World Congress on Root & Tuber Crops has a new website.
It’s the smallholders, stupid. Like the ones growing tea in Kenya, frinstance.
The EU to discuss agroecology. Yesterday, alas.
IRRI and Plant Treaty to share an IT-savvy genebank manager.
How kiwifruit became kiwifruit.
Microbes have collections too.