Nibbles – Page 446 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

November 13, 2007

Dryland, Livestock/Wildlife Environment Interface Project

Fatter livestock, more wild animals, honey. The elusive win-win-win?

November 13, 2007

Caribbean food and health

Lubin finds nutritional info on Caribbean foods.

November 13, 2007

Paris Hilton and agrobiodiversity

Paris Hilton worried about elephants getting drunk on rice beer. Pocket pig bandwagon awaits her.

November 13, 2007November 13, 2007

Garlic; cooking and diversity

How to cook garlic. Oh, and also how to identify duplicates in garlic germplasm collections by DNA fingerprinting.

November 13, 2007

Timing agricultural transition

When did Bhutan go agricultural? Dr Putterman says 5500 BP.

1. Sir Nathaniel Bacon’s painting records the arrival of American crops in early modern England. And the cookmaid gets equal billing.
2. North America’s bison survived near-extinction, but how much of its genetic diversity is left? Past and present DNA is helping reconstruct what was lost, with implications for how what remains is conserved and managed.
3. China’s wild rice collection in Hainan now holds more than 15,000 samples. A genetic treasure trove, but its value ultimately depends on what breeders can make of it. Much like what’s left of bison diversity.
4. Mycorrhizal fungi form vast underground networks that support plant life and store carbon. A new global map begins to show their extent, and just how much of this biodiversity remains overlooked.
5. Africa’s herbaria hold centuries of botanical history, much of it still effectively invisible. Specimens can reveal shifting plant distributions and overlooked species. First, though, someone has to do the painstaking work of getting the data online.
6. Africa has done painstaking work on seed laws, but getting good seed to farmers remains hard in practice. The gap between policy and delivery is stark, and commercial companies need to work alongside farmer-managed seed systems, not pretend they don’t exist.
Published on October 14, 2026