Nibbles – Page 474 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

August 18, 2007

Opiate supply and demand

More on legalizing poppy cultivation in Afghanistan.

August 17, 2007

Food miles to go before I sleep

A plea to rebuild regional food networks.

August 16, 2007

Ex situ conservation in NZ

New Zealand opens genebank for native plants. No crops, but maybe wild relatives?

August 15, 2007

Chez Alice

Pioneering restauranteur Alice Waters on Slow Food and more.

August 15, 2007

Hazelnut spread

Hybrid filberts are the next big thing in biofuels. Move over jatropha!

- China is building its germplasm collection at the National Frigid Zone Crop and Soybean Germplasm Resources Mid-term Bank in Harbin. Cool.
- Driscoll’s helped build China’s blueberry industry, then discovered that knowledge, infrastructure and genetics have a habit of escaping. Not so cool.
- Meanwhile, the Philippines wants its rice collection to hit 21,000 varieties by the end of the year. IRRI unavailable for comment.
- Italy is establishing a major global olive genebank. Unclear where it fits in with other major global olive genebanks, but some redundancy is good.
- FAO showcases Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, where crops, landscapes and traditional knowledge have survived together. Like olives in Italy, I guess.
- The mangelwurzel is making a comeback, because apparently forgotten root vegetables just need better publicity, and not a fancy GIAHS.
- Ohio growers are trying to save the pawpaw just as Americans are discovering it, partly because of better publicity.
- BeanGPT is bringing AI to breeding and farming beans. Maybe it can help the mangelwurzel and pawpaw too?
Published on September 23, 2026