Nibbles

Nibbles: Ag & biodiversity, Sattu, African crops, New rice, Maya religion

Good roundup of the latest thinking on land sharing vs sparing.
Hummus is not the only thing to use chickpeas for: you can also make sattu sherbert.
Africa looks to fonio. Again.
A new, uniquely high-protein, low-glycemic index rice.
The Maya Maize God’s sacrifice was re-enacted in a cave. And if you want more background, do listen to this fabulous podcast on the Popol Vuh.

Call to set up a sheep genebank in Australia. Kinda surprised there isn’t one already, frankly.
Bringing back purple wheat in the US. Spoiler alert: genebanks were involved.
Going back to “organized chaos” in Hawaiian farming. There’s probably room for genebanks too, though.

Qatari botanic garden is providing training in food security, and more. Good for them.
The European Evaluation Network’s lettuce boffins have themselves a meeting. Pretty amazing this made it to FreshPlaza, and with that headline.
The Jordan Times pretty much mangles what is a perfectly nice, though inevitably nuanced, story about the genetic depth of Jordan’s olives.
In Kenya’s seed system, whatever is not forbidden in proposed new legislation…may not be enough.
Conservation through hybridization.
FAOSTAT now has a bit that gives you access to national agricultural census data. Which sounds quite important but give us a few days to check it.