Nibbles

Nibbles: Andean potatoes, Nepal, Geraniol, Agroforestry

Papas got a brand new bag — starring alongside Paul McCartney. Here’s the English.
Duff commercial seeds a disaster for Nepalese farmers. As our friend Bhuwon said, “please do not give up your local varieties and traditional knowledge yet”.
How to come up smelling of roses — eat a new kind of confectionary.
Combining high biodiversity with high yields in tropical agroforests. Ought to be (and will be) Brainfood, but for now, anyone have any time to write this up for us?

Fair trade Haitian mangoes hit the shelves.
Molecular boffins use nifty new toys to re-write rice history. Until the next time.
The genebank of the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture in Dubai has found material suitable for, ahem, saline agriculture.
The genebank of the Indian Institute of Spices Research in Calicut has a large collection of, ahem, spices.
The downside of tilapia.
And, speaking of fish, it’s not all bad news.

The evolution of the GBIF registry. If you need to ask, you don’t need to know. And if you don’t, you do.
US farmers encouraged to try millets, sorghum — for birds. …
… while in Kenya, Farmers turn to sorghum to boost their food security. They’re eating their beer.
The latest Berry go Round blog carnival is up at Foothills Fancies. I liked the Red Filbert.
The European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources, known to its friends as ecp/gr, has a spiffy new website. But no RSS feed, so it’s unlikely we’ll be bringing you anything else of interest from that site.
Battery rabbits back on the menu in England? A warren of contradictions, I tell you.
International Conference on In Situ/On farm conservation and use of agrobiodiversity (fruit crops and wild fruit species) in Central Asia, 23-26 August, in Tashkent. Programme PDF here.
“Japan should look to satoyama and satoumi for inspiration.” I thought it already had …

“The GM debate is about more than biosafety.” SciDev.net’s editor tells it like it is.
Jeremy gets into a historical tiz about turning dates into bananas.
One take on a report for USAID suggesting food aid could be more nutritious.

Another view of peak phosphorus: there isn’t one.
Worldwatch Institute offers “15 solutions to … a healthier environment and a more food-secure future”. h/t ILRI.
From sorghum to maize, not your usual “top lady farmer“.
Plant clinics thriving in Sierra Leone. Do the plant doctors ever prescribe agricultural biodiversity?