Nibbles

Nibbles: Superweeds, Old spices, Companies and nutrition, Bananas and cacao, Coffee pix, Potato restaurant, Millet processing, Aussie social herbarium, Rockefeller Story, Apple nutrition, And a bottle of rum…

Those who like that sort of thing will no doubt enjoy this discussion at Biofortified of that recent paper about a herbicide resistance transgene possibly giving a fitness advantage to weeds. And more.
As for me, I’d rather read about Neolithic spices. Or beer.
Some food companies more committed to nutrition than others shock. But good to have the data.
Bananas to the rescue in cacao plantations. If I had the willpower I’d try to mash it up with the previous thing. Anyway, coffee next?
Eating more spuds in the Village. Eating more millets in the village.
Australian National Herbarium gets a Facebook page.
The history of the Rockefeller Foundation’s agriculture work. That would include the Green Revolution.
Really confused Telegraph piece on heirloom and/or organic apples.
I guess I missed National Rum Day. But I’m nevertheless glad that it exists.

Another soldier, this time a Brit, “Rebuilding Afghanistan through agriculture … as part of a counter-narcotics cell that encouraged farmers to grow legal agricultural crops, such as wheat, instead of illegal opium poppies”.
Wild wheats and barley responded better to higher CO2, and that’s why they were domesticated.
Climate change is also changing one of my favourite apples — for the worse.
Kew reviews map app. No idea where our mapping expert is.

US listeners get an earful of the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation.
And can read all about the history of one of the great heirloom tomatoes, Cherokee Purple.
You can’t have too many urban beekeepers, or can you …? Be warned, the full article is behind a paywall.
Floridian bottarga “tastes cleaner than the Italian stuff” shock.
Molecular diversity among Cannabis genomes. We say, “bring back the landraces”.

Friday was International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. Let one post on Indigenous Peoples and the Diversity of Food represent them all. (But isn’t that coffee in the photo?)
And yesterday was 23 Thermidor, AKA Lentil Day, in the French Republican Calendar. In other news, “Every day of the French Republican Calendar was associated with a different plant, animal, agricultural tool, etc., both to replace the custom of saints’ days and to celebrate the agricultural and natural world.”
Today brings notice of a contest to “showcase projects from around the globe that have bridged gaps between agriculture, food security, and nutrition”. Details from Secure Nutrition.
Growing greens — even exotic kale — in Kibera, Nairobi, would surely be a worthy winner.
Not so sure about the photo story of Combat farming in Afghanistan, (via Metafilter) which seems to be oblivious to the number one cash crop in those parts.