- Yak farming. In Arizona?
- Sorghum farming. In Kenya?
- Jackfruit farming. Who’d do it?
- Cassava farming. With all those nasty viruses?
- Fish farming. By Bangladeshi women?
- Global farming. What will the G20 do?
- Farming research. Have you heard of the CGIAR? From the horse’s mouth?
Nibbles: Agave pollination, Sanjaya Rajaram, PGR policy history, Ex situ conifers, Botanic garden theft, Kyrgyz forests, Home nurseries, American chestnut, South Pacific action
- Tequila and bats. Two of my favourite things.
- Continuing the Mexican theme, we have a World Food Prize 2014 winner.
- I wonder what he thinks of the changes he’s seen during his illustrious career in the international system for PGR conservation and use.
- I bet there’s a few endangered conifers, and maybe some ex situ collections, in Mexico.
- I hope there weren’t any among the plants stolen from the RBG Edinburgh recently.
- But perhaps there were some fruits and nuts from Kyrgyzstan?
- Well, the way to go is home nurseries, clearly.
- Maybe even with the GM chestnut, why not?
- Meanwhile, in the South Pacific, CePaCT has been really busy.
Nibbles: GM bananas, Passenger pigeons, Conference, Diet, Perennial grains, Ugandan mushrooms, Adopting diversity, Indian history
- “Genetically modified bananas grown in far north Queensland and bound for Africa are about to undergo human trials in the United States.” Because … GM!
- More on those passenger pigeons.
- A big old conference on Agriculture and climate change, February 2015.
- Then again, we could all change what we eat to combat climate change.
- Or change what we grow. Report on some perennial grain experiments.
- Mushrooms for Uganda, a new project sees the light of day.
- “The determinants and extent of crop diversification among smallholder farmers” in Zambia. It’s IFPRI, Jake.
- I really just wanted a reason to link to this site, so I searched for millet. I’ll bet there’s more there of more direct interest.
Nibbles: Detecting diseases, Better bees, Millet milestone, Passenger pigeon, Land rights, Mongol mayhem, Jumping genes
- Sensors for volatile organic compounds will detect crop diseases for ya. Then a drone comes in and zaps them?
- Breeding better bees.
- “So why not simply replace the traditional variety with Dhanshakti?” Answers on a postcard, please.
- Bringing back the passenger pigeon.
- The impact of land rights around the world. Including on conservation of agricultural biodiversity?
- What the Mongols ate, and how we know it. Some millet. Maybe some passenger pigeons. Interesting concept of land rights.
- Sorry we’re one day late celebrating Barbara McClintock’s birthday.
Nibbles: Colombian chocolate, Urban ag, Subaks, GM debate, Taxonomy online, Genebank tools online, BBC on Kew, Australian seed bank, Cedar of Lebanon, Pizza philosophy, Feijoada
- Move over Juan Valdez. Cacao farmers want to emulate a marketing icon.
- Urban agriculture not all it’s cracked up to be. Living up to that urban ag icon, Cuba, is hard.
- Bali’s iconic, traditional subaks are a complex adaptive system, and much better than modern rice farming alternatives. Makes you wonder why they need protecting, though.
- GM bananas will save us. Not by themselves they wont. I don’t know why I keep linking to this stuff. Nothing at all iconic about it.
- Iconic taxonomic revision tools online.
- Something else that’s online is a bunch of tools for analyzing genebank data. Soon to be iconic, no doubt. As soon as people use them. So get cracking.
- Huge BBC documentary on Kew coming up. I bet the iconic Millennium Seed Bank will feature.
- Speaking of iconic genebank buildings, today’s one comes from Australia.
- The history of an iconic Middle Easter tree?
- The philosophy of an iconic Italian delicacy. Well, Neapolitan, really.
- And in honour of the World Cup (I refuse to put FIFA in front, let them sue me), an iconic Brazilian dish. And don’t worry, those beans are safe. Somewhere iconic.