- World’s oldest basil pollen “may be ‘medicine’”.
- Bioversity digitises the past and contributes to the future: The rise of Africa’s super vegetables.
- New network for sustainable intensification.
- Amaze your friends with you up-to-date knoweldge of the current state of grass genomics.
- Biochar is once again “the next big thing”.
Nibbles: EU meet, Green cities, Gates strategy, Indigenous hunger, Niche coffee, Salinity, Botany rules, Pollinator evidence, Sacred cows, Coke bottles
- A couple of EU DGs discuss farming for diversity, maybe even diversity in farming?
- They recently heard about urban farming from FAO, which might help. Oh no, wait, that’s a different DG.
- Gates Foundation doubles down on nutrition, nice to see agriculture in the mix too.
- Meanwhile, efforts are underway to measure the food security of indigenous people in better ways, so that we can figure out whether things like the above are actually working.
- Sourcing high quality coffee. I think we can all get behind that goal.
- Deconstructing salt tolerance in chickpea.
- Botany has an image problem. No, really?
- Fact-checking pollinator decline.
- Only local cows for Haryana. Seems extreme? Well, Michigan not above doing the same.
- Coca-Cola has plant-based bottles. Now to embed some seeds in them.
- Maybe Swedish vegetable seeds. Do they have Coke in Sweden?
Nibbles: Savannah diversity, Omani banana, Truffle dogs, Taro & reef, Organic returns, Interspecific hybrids, Silk worm DNA, Indian diversity, American-Indian diversity, Aquaculture, Edge of Extinction, Inga key, Mexican forests, Mexican genebank, Beer, Spanish wheat, Commodities & SDGs
- Metabarcoding of poop reveals secret of large herbivore diversity in African savannahs.
- Unique Omani banana fights pests.
- Truffle dogs: “Il cane, le corna non te le mette mai…”
- Traditional taro cultivation protects Hawaiian reef.
- Organic farming pays.
- Climate change favouring offspring of interspecies hybridization. Also in crops? Like brassicas maybe?
- Domestication of silk worm probed molecularly. Is that even a word?
- Video explains Baranaja. Spoiler alert: it’s the diversity, stupid.
- And along the same lines: rare seeds go home.
- Brazil wants to be among the top 5 fish producers in the world. What could possibly go wrong.
- Extracts from Jules Pretty’s book on what we can all learn from more nature-loving societies.
- The key to Inga conservation. Is keys.
- Community-based forest management in the Yucatan: “Future generations have the right to know them.” And not just the trees, bees too.
- Since we’re in Mexico: a visit to the genebank.
- The women of beer. None of them using cassava, though, alas.
- “El mercado tiene sus normas y los científicos no las conocemos”.
- Agro-commodity traders can be good for you. Somebody mention the market?
Nibbles: Bitter tea, Agroecology, Forest harvest double, Cannabis research, Agave farming, Bible food, Perennials, Wheat composition
- Hard times for tea in Kenya. Believe me, I know, the mother-in-law never stops going on about it.
- Agroecology, HuffPost piece and video.
- Lessons on sustainable forest food harvesting from India.
- Fixing Prunus africana harvesting: saying it is easier than doing it. Should have asked the Indians.
- Studying weed.
- Young people don’t like tequila. Farming its raw material, that is. Should maybe switch to weed? No, wait…
- Weird Biblical food.
- Did we miss this thing on perennial cereals when it first came out?
- Nutritional composition of wheat hasn’t changed in 150 years. Not sure if that good or bad. What will happen when it goes perennial?
Nibbles: Seeds, IPES report, Old wheat & bread, Twiga, Coca eradication, Double cheese, Breeding apples, Rose collection, Old tea, Insect as food, Fishing industry, UNFCCC negotiations, Famine book, Comms toolkit
- Seeds scoped in the Pacific. I doubt the region will feature much in the Access to Seeds Index. Not unless it features community seed production groups like Atauro in East Timor.
- Wanna reform the food system? Here’s the theory.
- And here’s the practice, at least for wheat (and bread). Though some would probably beg to differ.
- Blowing up African retail, one banana at the time.
- Biological control of coca. What could possibly go wrong.
- The reason for the holes in swiss cheese? We finally have the data.
- But personally I prefer halloumi.
- There are patents. There is PVP. And there are trademarks. A podcast on apple breeding, if you can believe it.
- A whole bunch of heirloom roses all in one place.
- Museum boffins find stale tea, Brits go ape.
- Go on, have an insect.
- Or maybe a nice piece of fish. While you can.
- Confused about the UNFCCC negotiations about agriculture? Farming First has you covered.
- Famine is history. Discuss.
- NSF toolkit for communicating science. Maybe I should have read this before Nibbling.