- The Daily Star of Bangladesh waxes lyrical about old rice varieties, and asks “Who knows how many of these homegrown varieties will soon dwindle into being sheer memory?” We know the answer to that one: 75%
- Professor Sir Gorden Conway hymns Josephine Okot, woman seed entrepreneur.
- Part 2 of a look at whether India’s city-centred policy is justifiable. Not on diversity grounds.
Nibbles: New cassava, CBSD maps, Research, Pest management, Banana research
- Farm-Africa celebrates its new cassava successes … but are they resistant to Brown Streak disease?
- Meanwhile, Glenn maps the possible extent of the looming CBSD problem.
- Rothamsted has a new Science Strategy. And it includes breeding for better nutrition.
- Can insect biodiversity help potato farmers in a warming climate? It’s complicated …
- Philippine banana industry wants government money to protect its production.
Nibbles: Cassava bad and good news, Soybean domestication, Bitter gourd, Drought, Agrobiodiversity job, Heirloom turkey, Eurisco, Artisanal wheat, MSB, Food culture
- FAO really very worried about cassava. Does it know that the CGIAR has the technology?
- In today’s “crop X domesticated earlier than usually thought” story, X = soybean.
- The Deccan Chronicle discovers the Bitter Gourd Project and likes what it sees.
- How to drought phenotype crops.
- The Christensen Fund has a position open for a Program Associate – Agrobiodiversity and Biocultural Landscapes. Damn, that sounds interesting.
- “But, miraculously, the Ghost Turkey survives.”
- Eurisco has a new website!
- Artisanal wheat on the rise. I love the quip in the caption.
- Vancouver ♥ Millennium Seed Bank, and fawns over faux royalty.
- Amaranth and pizza offer entreés to culture and politics.
Nibbles: Gums & resins, ITPGRFA, Soy sauce, Med diet, Aquaculture, Cacao, Sugar industry, Nomenclature, Yam (Chinese), Urban agriculture
- After yesterday’s thing on gum arabic, CIFOR’s blogger weighs in on frankincense and myrrh. Gums and resins renaissance, anyone?
- VoA on the ITPGRFA, with interview goodness.
- Soy sauce in bullet points.
- A Spanish food historian’s deconstruction of the Mediterranean diet deconstructed by Rachel Laudan.
- Fish in paddies: here comes the science.
- Côte d’Ivoire to revive cacao cultivation. By building a research centre?
- Pleasant, cultured and not so short foray into the history of the sugar industry in Kenya and Mauritius.
- You say sweet potato. I say yam.
- You say yam, so does Rhizowen, and yet … he’s talking about neither Ipomoea nor Manihot.
- Urban agriculture thriving in DR Congo.
Nibbles: Gum arabic, Sago, Chilli, Apples
- Interview with the Secretary-General of Gum Arabic Council. In other news, there’s a Gum Arabic Council.
- Gosh, is that really all there is today?
- Ah yes, here’s something more, sago cultivation in Indonesia.
- And the ongoing search for the world’s hottest chilli pepper.
- Neil’s got apples in Himal Pradesh, an enriching response to climate change.