Nibbles

Nibbles: Desert legumes, BiH, Seedbombs, Workshops on food security, Mandrake, Productivity, Peppers, Cockles, Cassava

Desert seeds go to Svalbard.
“Two young engineers, Fuad Gasi and Idin Fazlic, are in charge of the bank, which is staffed by volunteers.”
Seedbombs: recipes and legal niceties.
Achieving food security sustainably. Report of a PAR/FAO workshop.
On the other hand, here’s what Australia’s leaders heard about A Food Secure World.
How much do you really need to know about mandrake?
Do rich countries produce more per hectare? h/t GOOD
Pocket guides to chili farming. Might have a wider audience than originally intended.
Collecting cockles is women’s work, at least in Ecuador.
Why would anyone want to eat it when they could use cassava for biofuel instead?

Yemen saves local varieties, adapts local agriculture.
Not all small livestock enterprises guarantee success. Beware.
Hot new book: Chasing Chilies.
Another list of really important questions. Answers? Can’t get the original, yet.
New World Bank blog on impact assessment. Assess this.
In the market for huckleberry market information?
CocoaLink off the ground. Maybe not in Cote d’Ivoire yet, though, alas.
PhilRice genebank in the Philnews.

10MB worth of proceedings of the Barley Genetics Symposium from ICARDA.
So, what will this CCAFS do anyway?
Russia offers VIR to the world. Again.
Adonis, Sappho and lettuce, all in one post.
Modern science needs traditional knowledge. And a fish needs a bicycle.
Global Crop Diversity Trust and Latin American genebanks team up to rescue another bunch of crops: coffee, tomatoes, chillies, beans, squash etc.
The world’s smallest and rarest wild suid is cute enough, not as cute as pocket pigs.

Saving the scrub lupine. Well, it’s a crop wild relative of sorts.
Dietary approaches to reduction of belching. No, not less beer and peanuts in front of the TV.
“Governments and institutions should strongly promote new agricultural technologies suitable for smallholders through increased investment in crop breeding and livestock research.” That would be IFPRI on the actions needed to prevent recurring food crises. Hope that includes supporting the genebanks.
“Can’t nutritionists make up their minds? They keep changing things!” Nuff said.
Carrots are exotic? In Canada? Yes indeedy.
Rachel dissects the cost of proper poi in Hawaii.
Behold Barhal, relative of breadfruit.
High yielding mung-bean repatriated to Somalia. Genebanks protect and serve?
Do your bit for conservation, eat an invasive. Or, perhaps, a bison?
Bad news for Indian mangoes. What I want to know is whether there are any varieties that are doing really well.
Mediterranean forests going up in smoke. Bad for the crop wild relatives in them too, no doubt

USC promotes pigeonpeas. And why not.
“Agrobiodiversity Management for Food Security: A Critical Review” by J M Lenné and D Wood hits newsstands.
How ICRAF intends to stop agroforestry being marginalized in the new CGIAR. Their words (more or less), not mine.