Nibbles

Nibbles: CWR conservation, Small farms & food security, iPlant, Forgotten edibles, James Wong, Google Earth Pro, Wageningen course, Journalism fellowship, Vavilov-Frankel

Draft technical guidelines from FAO on conserving crop wild relatives at national level.
Small farms are beautiful.
Finding the climate adaptation needle in the genomic haystack. Hint: supercomputers needed. DivSeek alerted?
Emma Cooper asks: “…have you got a favourite ‘forgotten’ edible plant that you’d like to champion?”
James Wong talks about that kind of thing too, and much else garden-related besides, on his new website.
Rejoice, Google Earth Pro is now free!
Wageningen UR course on Food For All.
UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism is offering ten $10,000 postgraduate Food and Farming Journalism Fellowships. ‘Nuff said.
Speaking of fellowships: the 2015 call for Bioversity’s Vavilov-Frankel Fellowship is open.
Possible new Cannabis species from Australia: watch them do the DNA work and spoil it. Gap analysis, anyone? … As you were, didn’t need DNA after all.

FAO says genes are good for climate.
India’s first private sector genebank established.
Well, at least one person is really excited about DivSeek.
And one major journal.
DuPont video on increasing sorghum Fe and Zn levels in Africa.
Will they sell it through local vendors or supermarkets?
Let them eat enset. Which is not, however, on this list of today’s top healthy crops.
Neither is breadfruit, but that shouldn’t stop you going to this conference in Trinidad.
Ford Denison writes about his appearance on Eat This Podcast.
Enough with the scary chocolate stories already.
Here, go play with this app about the flora of the paramo from Missouri Botanical Garden.
The CIMMYT genebank in the news.
Pig milk in your tea, vicar?

The truth about tilapia. Well, according to Fox News, anyway.
“..the greatest industry that ever had or could by possibility have ever existed in any age or country.” Go on, guess. No, not tilapia aquaculture, though it has time.
Modern Farmer gives us its hipster take on the potato. And bows out?
Mars unleashes its sustainability policies.
The Forest Stewardship Council gives examples of community-based conservation success stories.
Homegardens for nutrition. (No, no pre-cooked bean products here).
Ok, put the two previous together and you get this: Sumatran village forests.
Bet those villagers don’t need a gardening manual, unlike Henry VIII of England.
The American chestnut continues its comeback. Manual probably available.
After barcoding: metabarcoding.
Symposium on non-cow milk. Sounds like fun.
“With more diversity, the more tools we have to fight against problems like climate change.” Yes, even with wine grapes.
Biodiversity goods and bads: the role of biodiversity in poverty alleviation.

China needs potatoes. And McDonalds.
And Afghanistan needs saffron.
Mammoths killed by people, not asteroids.
A third of yield variability due to climate.
Conserving crop wild relatives in southern Africa.
“The fascination for exotic cattle breeds has been the bane of Indian dairy industry.”

Tonga joins the ITPGRFA. About time too. I started talking to them about it 10 years ago.
What exactly does it mean to be “amped” about seeds? And do they have to be organic? And do these Filipino ones qualify?
Enough with the banana scare stories already!
Go on, nominate someone for the World Food Prize.
Mushroom beer? Yeah, ok.
USDA waxes nerdy about cover crops.
Gateses’ Big Bet for African agriculture. Move along, nothing to see here.