- “Take into account both women’s and men’s preferences when developing and introducing new varieties.”
- Rats!
- Domestication of figs pre-dates that of cereals?
- Neanderthals liked barbecue.
- Underutilized plant in homegarden a terror threat.
- Heirloom bean farmer feted by Washington Post, added to Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog blogroll.
- Orchards as hotspots of agrobiodiversity.
- “…grass pea is a ‘poster child’…”
Nibbles: Favas, Olives, Insects, Beer, Hallucinogen
- UK breeders scour ICARDA’s fava beans for better genes. What next? Chianti?
- Olive cultivation then and now. An archaeologist speaks.
- Entomophagy.
- Lager yeast origins.
- Salvia divinorum: underutilized no longer.
Nibbles: Yeast, Weeds, Bioprospecting, Iraq, Pine wilt, Vietnam, GM, GM, Insects, Bees, Sheep, Fowl
- Boffins to brew Jurassic Park beer.
- Boffins fingerprint weeds.
- Boffins scour arctic for antifreeze proteins.
- Boffins to reclaim Garden of Eden.
- Boffins fight to save pines in Europe.
- Boffins improve production of rice and fruits in Mekong Delta.
- Boffins to spend $US3.5billion on GM in China.
- Boffin “disgraces himself”.
- Boffin says insects are agrobiodiversity too.
- Boffin wants you to plant sunflowers and count bees. Other boffins dig up evidence of bliblical beekeeping.
- Boffins find endogenous retroviruses in sheep different to ones in wild relatives. Via.
- Boffins kill beautiful theory about pre-Columbian chickens with ugly fact.
Nibbles: Value chains, Growing local
- Value chain analysis — how beans get form Guatemala to Costco. CIAT involved. Huge story.
- Brilliant. Via Aguanomics. Sky Vegetables.
Nibbles: Double dose of Pacific, Harlan II Symposium
- Pacific genebank will help secure future food supplies. Mary Taylor comments: “It’s significant insurance”.
- And more from Luigi’s old stomping ground: “We need to sign up to the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, so that we can access a wider pool of diversity and share genetic resources.”
- Diamond Does Davis.