Nibbles

Nibbles: Genome assembly, Congo livelihoods, Tilman, Peak farmland, Lima bean project, Cotton award, Translocation, Sudanese seed, Pachyrhizus, Conference, Agro-ecology, SEAVEG, Indigenous foodways,

The latest genomic whiz-bangery.
CIFOR’s Congo slideshow makes The Guardian. About as far from genomic whiz-bangery as you can get.
Speaking of which… Very long talk by David Tilman. Almost certainly worth watching in its entirety. Eventually. It all depends on trade-offs. See what I did there?
Agriculture stops expanding. Is it all that genomic whiz-bangery?
U. of Delaware gets big Lima bean grant. Yes, Delaware. They got whiz-bangery in Delaware too.
Meanwhile, Texan cotton breeder gets award. For a certain amount of whiz-bangery.
Translocation and restoration: cool, but a last resort, whiz-bangery says.
Support for the seed sector in S. Sudan. Any landraces? No whiz-bangery in sight.
And likewise for the yam bean in Africa.
Wonder whether that’ll be on the agenda at the First Food Security Futures Conference in April. Probably not.
Nor, probably, will anyone be thinking too hard about agro-ecology; but you could be, with this handy-dandy introduction to holistic management.
SEAVEG; no, not nori etc, but veg in SE Asia.
Different animals need different kinds of fodder, ILRI shows how.
Wishing success to the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative launched at the University of Arkansas today.

The latest bit of CGIAR navel-gazing is about whether research should be for or in development.
The Futures of Agriculture: Brief No. 42. No, really, 42. Love that plural, though
And of course UNEP needs to have its say too.
Oh, wow, someone actually doing something.
How about a visionary use for tree seeds? Burn ’em!
Then there are visions of potato diversity.
And a vision of a world covered in soybeans.
And DNA sequences as far as the eye can see. So, can we get all those wild relatives done now, just for the heck of it?
Can you take one more vision? Here’s one of rewilded Europe.

If you have diverse potatoes, you need diverse potato recipes.
In 2013, knock ‘em dead with your profound knowledge of quinoa.
Biofuel news 1: they may exacerbate global warming.
Biofuel news 2: “Powerful enzymes create ethanol from agricultural harvest waste”. Could I just remind everyone, this isn’t “waste”.
Raisins from Kandahar prompt diplomatic dreams of developing Afghan agriculture.
Does heirloom corn prompt similar dreams for the Cherokee Nation?

Sweet potato cuttings to the rescue in Fiji. Hope there’s a nice mix of varieties.
Quinoa: and so it begins.
Filipinos not eating their fruits. Bad for Filipino health, no doubt bad for Filipino agrobiodiversity too.
Maybe they should look to Cape Verde?
ICARDA waxes poetic about lentils.
Ecosystem services mapping projects go online. Or they will do, eventually. Just a survey for now. Should that include in situ CWR conservation projects? Now’s your chance to have your say.

New Year Resolution No. 1: Take the mashua survey.
New Year Resolution No. 2: Give the Food Programme a break, it can be not bad. As in the case of the recent episode featuring Irish Seed Savers and the only uniquely British veg.
New Year Resolution No. 3: Learn to appreciate hour-plus talks by CG Centre DGs. And other publicity stunts…
New Year Resolution No. 4: Give a damn about the next genome. Well, actually…
New Year Resolution No. 5: Try to understand what people think may be going on with malnutrition in India. If anything.
New Year Resolution No. 6: Marvel at new maps without fretting about how difficult to use they may be.
New Year Resolution No. 7: Do not snigger at the British honours system.
New Year Resolution No. 8: Disengage from the whole are-GMOs-good-or-bad? thing. It’s the wrong question, and nobody is listening anyhow.
New Year Resolution No. 9: Ignore the next lactose tolerance evolution story. They’re all the same.
New Year Resolution No. 10: Stop obsessing about beer. But not yet. No, not yet.
Happy 2013!