Nibbles

July 21, 2007July 22, 2007

Kofi Annan visits Kenyan farmer

Kofi Annan sees for himself. Jeremy unavailable for comment.

July 21, 2007July 21, 2007

Rice art

Unusual, stunning use of variation in rice leaf colour in Japan. Via Salon.

July 21, 2007July 21, 2007

Sorghum beer

Ok, maybe 126. Sorghum beer, anyone?

July 20, 2007July 21, 2007

Beer diversity

There are 125 different styles of beer. I just need a cold one.

July 20, 2007

Liberian rice farmers can’t get hold of seeds

Risk of (more) rice genetic erosion in Liberia?

1. Frafra potato is having a moment: an indigenous West African tuber, adored locally and mostly ignored by science, out looking for its big commercial break.
2. Speaking of breakthroughs, this bus driver found his own, swapping the wheel for seed multiplication and turning five acres into a livelihood, proof that sometimes the missing link in a seed system is just someone willing to do the unglamorous middle bit well.
3. Which is, per Farming First, precisely Africa’s problem at scale: only 2.5% of smallholder seed in Sub-Saharan Africa comes from formal seed companies, so a few million more bus-driver-style multipliers wouldn’t hurt.
4. Meanwhile in the Balearics, the opposite direction of travel: the local seed bank is expanding to rescue tomatoes, onions and broad beans, and is looking for farmers willing to take them back.
5. Indigenous fruit trees in Malawi turn out to fight malnutrition and biodiversity loss at once. Happy coincidence?
6. Getting those trees into the ground well needs the same unglamorous groundwork as any good crop seed system: a Mongabay commentary argues that restoration campaigns skipping Indigenous and local seed knowledge are optimising for trees planted, not trees that survive.
7. And once you’ve got the saplings in the ground, you might want to monitor how they’re doing: enter Bruno, a pushcart rigged with mobile phones that can collect field data. And not just for breeders.
8. Finally, proof that not all genetic-resource hunting needs a genebank: Brussels brewers are getting people to comb the city for wild yeast, because the raw materials for a proper lambic turns is hanging around in urban trees.
Published on September 10, 2026