Nibbles – Page 426 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

March 5, 2008March 6, 2008

Nibbles: Potatoes, livestock, artemesia

File under “never too late”: Ireland diversifies its potatoes.
UK establishes livestock breeds committee. Not concerned about species?
“All I think of is more and more artemesia,” says shilling millionaire Ugandan farmer.

March 4, 2008March 5, 2008

Nibbles: IPRs, chicory, pigs

Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher optimistic that farmers can avoid becoming “serfs of a different kind”.
Three chicory museums? Who knew? Want to know more about chicory?
Just when you thought it was safe, Return of the Pocket Pigs (with added photographic goodness).

March 3, 2008March 3, 2008

Nibbles: Anti-diversification, chickens, bananas, registers, tropical fruits

US subsidy system prevents diversification. Via.
Chicken domestication; possibly more than you could ever want to know.
Red bananas; Raul unavailable for comment.
Filipino community registers agrobiodiversity.
Tropical fruit diversity conserved, studied and consumed in the US. That includes the citron. ¹

March 2, 2008March 2, 2008

Nibbles: Branding, dogs

Commodity branding is older than you think. Via.
Ancient Scandinavian dogs not like modern Scandinavian dogs.

February 29, 2008February 29, 2008

Nibbles: Carnival, pomegranates, cattle, potatoes

Berry Go Round No. 2 is up with lots and lots of botanical links.
Pomegranate juice manufacturer says its juice is best.
Cattle and aurochs did the wild thing.
The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has a potato genebank. With pic goodness.

1. Ancient farmers didn’t have to wait for the genetic diversity that made domestication possible. They selected from variation already present in wild plants, including the ancestors of rice and maize. Domestication was as much about spotting (or happening upon) useful differences as creating new ones.
2. English colonists in America called Indigenous dogs “wolves,” revealing as much about colonial perceptions as about the animals themselves. This history of Indigenous dogs shows how unfamiliar animals were classified through peculiarly European ideas about wildness.
3. Austria is bringing forgotten apple varieties back to life. Saving old varieties in genebanks is one thing: getting people to grow, sell and eat them is another, but it can be done. Or at least tried.
4. Jordan’s olive-oil heritage centres on traditional varieties such as Nabali and ancient Rumi trees, but most production is consumed locally, leaving exports limited and making provenance, cultivar and harvest date important indicators for buyers. Compare and contrast with Austrian apples.
5. Small island developing states have distinctive food cultures and ingredients, but face particular challenges in building sustainable and resilient food systems. FAO’s A Taste of SIDS explores the connections between island food, biodiversity and culinary heritage. Nice to see diversity within crops considered, though a few local variety names would have been nice.
Published on October 21, 2026