Nibbles

Nibbles: Fungi, Fireblight, Flood Relief, Irrational Ghanaian men, Symposium, Dust Bowl Blues, SRI, Brazil’s agro-policy

Where do new mushrooms come from? Hint: domestication of wild species has not stopped.
And resistance to fireblight in apples? Hint: a single specimen of an old variety.
How about help for flood-stricken Nigerian farmers? Hint: a gene bank!
Where do people get gender in agriculture all wrong? Hint: women may bring home the bacon, but if that threatens their husband’s status, rationality flies out the door.
Where, from 10-13 December, can you learn about “Crops from the past and new crops in adressing (sic) the challenges of the XXI century”? Hint: Córdoba, Spain.
Where did the Dust Bowl go? Hint: it never went away.
Where to get the straight dope on System of Rice Intensification? Hint: an SRI researcher may not be unbiased.
Where are government and civil society elaborating a National Plan for Agroecology and Organic Production? Hint: a river runs through it.

Farmers are “the canaries in the mine when it comes to climate change,” says The Financial Times. Get the whole report as a PDF.
Bioversity says it has climate change covered with a new Seeds for Needs project. Is there an echo in here?
Farming First covers climate change in an infographic.
Avenue of the Baobabs in Madagascar burnt down. Better edit those factsheets.
Heirloom maize farmers talk sense on GM corn shock …
… but Punjab doesn’t care. Invites Monsanto “To put agriculture diversification on the fast track”.

And we’ve got nutrition in spades:

Jessica Fanzo wins the Carasso Prize for her great research on nutrition. Proud to call her a friend.
There was a roundtable associated with the Carasso Prize. Lawrence Haddad blogs about it.
Pity that roundtable clashed with Workshop: ‘Adding Value to Local Foods for Food and Nutrition Security: Myth or Strategic Option’ in the Caribbean.
Will the Caribbean warm to finger millet? Zester Daily just wants to share the gluten-free goodness.
Bere whisky. No, you read that right. Bere as in barley, not as in beer. But then, barley is in beer. Where’s an etymologist when you need one?

I know you’re just dying to see a Social Network Analysis of agricultural research in Malawi.
Big cheeses say Economic growth alone won’t end hunger.
Wendell Berry is taking a long-term view of the long-term land “emergency” in the US.
The heck with food, say Oz ag wonks, let’s farm carbon.
Hey, why doesn’t somebody do this for Berry go Round? (We’re way too busy.)

Palestinian rooftop gardens. Including crucifers, no doubt.
Brits support work with rice and wheat wild relatives. Among other things. They’ll probably use some of these genomics things.
Aussies support sweet potatoes. HarvestPlus rejoices.
That new Australian genebank. Will it have any sweet potatoes?
The agricultural legacy of Thomas Jefferson. It doesn’t say here, but I bet he was into sweet potato.
Hawaiian menus. What, no sweet potato?
Forget biotech, the road to sexy agriculture is via the supermarket. Where you can buy sweet potato. Maybe even of the organic persuasion.
Or maybe better tree seeds. Even in the Nordic countries. Or the US. Is cacao a tree?
Plans for special edition of Sustainability on neglected crops. Like amaranth?
Geographic targeting reaches roots/tubers. Using this newfangled atlas? Or no?
Treaty and Consortium love-in filmed. Thanks for sharing. It’s all part of this CGIAR perestroika thing, no doubt.
What that Kew coffee extinction paper really said.
Protected areas need work. Especially for coffee (see above).
Yeah but protected areas is not the only way to go, and Europe now has a bunch of biodiversity indicators for farmland. I guess it’s all part of some big plan.
Policy brief on sustainable use of PGR. Or, as we used to call it, on farm conservation.
Which you can kind of see happening here.