Nibbles

Nibbles: SEARICE, R&D, Sustainable intensification, Biofortification, Chillies, Safe movement, Mangoes, Weeds, Berries, Blueberries, Cerrado

SEARICE explains its approach to seed sovereignty and farmer participation.
Nature on IFPRI’s report on agricultural R&D in Africa. Not pretty.
Resilience Science on the UN Special Rapporteur’s sustainable intensification thing.
The Gates Foundation is on a nutritional roll; most of yesterday’s posts are available from this round-up.
New Mexico gets all protectionist about its chillies.
IITA explains how it provides healthy germplasm. Various different interesting stories in there, stick with it.
Farmer conservation power in India.
How to control invasive species. Eat more weeds.
Presentation on Trends in global nutrition and health: Local fruits and their potential importance for nutrition and health as seen at Pavlovsk berry meeting.
Speaking of berries…
The cerrado (and its crop wild relatives) is in trouble. We talked about this, weren’t you paying attention?

Why don’t genebanks count as natural history collections?
Saving The Old Apple Tree. That would be as opposed to any old apple tree.
“If the indigenous seeds are important enough for scientists to fight to preserve in a seed vault deep in the belly of a mountain in Norway, would it not make sense to ensure these seeds survive within their own environments?” Good question from Uganda.
Council on Bioethics says “Biofuel policies are unethical”. Here’s the Press Release.
Local women’s quinoa cookbook (in Spanish) wins prize (in France). We’re calling it quinoa, not quinua, because we want people to find us.
CARE cares about climate change and food security.

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.