- Bush tucker may be viable business proposition. But doesn’t it taste like crap? And do any crop wild relatives qualify?
- Europe mapping its high value forests. No word on whether crop wild relatives come into the assessment.
- Sorghum breeder reveals all.
- Embrapa supporting African agriculture with help from Gates Foundation.
- How many seasons are there anyway?
- Test yourself on Farmer Field Schools.
- Delve into abstracts for the 4th International Rice Congress (IRC2014).
- New Yorker replies to Vandana Shiva reply to her profile in the New Yorker.
- Some crops resist mechanization.
- Editing the horns from cattle genome.
- A young Amish farmer with big ideas.
- Your organic rat, sir.
- Crop pests and diseases are coming to get you.
- Fun reddit with Peter Giuliano, barista extraordinaire.
Nibbles: Palms, Walnuts, Gardening game, Measuring biodiversity, Promoting biodiversity, Restoring land, Honeybee evolutions, Amaranth recipes, Cider communication
- Someone you know might need to know the difference between a coconut palm and an oil palm.
- Or between English walnuts and French walnuts (and much more besides).
- Is an interactive game really the best way for children to learn about organic gardening?
- Canadian Cattlemen magazine shares a woman scientist’s deep insights into measuring biodiversity.
- And Indian priests used Konnsanchem fest to urge the revival of agrobiodiversity.
- Other Indians are restoring their land by getting rid of an interloper crop.
- DNA suggests a new ancestral home for the honeybee.
- Now I know what to do with the amaranth blocking every pavement in Rome: how to cook this prolific leafy green.
- Nominally about cider and apples, Pete Brown downs Strongbow’s communications in a few quick drafts.
Nibbles: Frankincense, Stevia, Market forces
Busy? I should say so. And major kudos to Luigi for shouldering the burden. In the process of declaring RSS bankruptcy this morning, just four items seemed both timely and worthwhile. So here goes nothing:
- Harvesting frankincense robs the trees, so at least do it right.
- If Coke with Stevia is Coke Life, Alun Salt points out, then regular Coke must be, er, … better tasting?
- Folk keep telling developing-country farmers to hook up with local markets, now English allotmenteers are doing the same. H/t CRF.
- And if it’s market apostasy you’re after, how about Raising food prices to end hunger?
Nibbles: Fossil biodiversity, Culture & health, Cicer drought experiment, Endangered fish, Wheat hydridization, Food aid, Ag trade double, Sustainable diets, Fermentation book
- The Global Fossil Record. Visualized. Not agricultural, but couldn’t resist it.
- Malnutrition? It’s the culture, stupid.
- Check out the world’s largest chickpea drought trial.
- Overfishing the Amazon.
- Ah, so that’s how wheat did it!
- Food aid can support sustainable livelihoods too.
- Soon, most crop production will go to feed China’s pigs. And you’ll be able to follow that on FAOStat’s interactive thingie on agricultural tradeflows.
- But it can’t possibly be good for sustainable diets, can it?
- New book on fermentation. Never enough of those.
Nibbles: Restoring forests, Sampling strategies, Breadfruit history, Wheat & CC, Pacific fisheries, Sustainable food experts, CG talkfest, Irish & potatoes, Diet costs, ITPGRFA projects, Poaching & medicine, Coca alternatives, Ethiopian agroforestry, Mutation breeding, Gaza greens
- Genetic considerations in ecosystem restoration using native tree species. No excuse for getting it wrong now.
- “Careful tailoring of seed collections to specific species and situations critical to preserving plant diversity.” No excuse for getting it wrong now.
- Breadfruit makes The Paris Review.
- Got any ideas on protecting wheat from heat and drought?
- Where will Pacific Islanders get their protein from if all the fish go?
- International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems set up. Rejoice. Maybe they’ll be invited to the CGIAR’s Development Dialogues.
- The Irish know a thing or two about sustainable food systems.
- Yeah but how much does a decent diet cost anyway?
- An overview of the Seed Treaty’s projects on climate change adaptation.
- Poaching in Kenya driven by demand for dodgy traditional medicine? And finding an alternative for Peru’s traditional medicine of choice.
- What has agroforestry ever done for us?
- You say conventional I say mutation.
- The leafy greens of Gaza.