Nibbles

June 22, 2007June 22, 2007

EC wants a biodiversity database

The European Commission wants a Biodiversity knowledge base. I wonder whether it wants ag in there.

June 22, 2007

Garlic in the press

The beginning of a panic about the garlic deficit with China? Via Food Museum Blog.

June 22, 2007

Potholes on the Tequila Trail

Tequila vs maize in the homeland of both.

June 21, 2007

Controlling bacterial wilt

Another reason why intercropping is a good idea.

June 21, 2007

Marine genetic resources

Aside from the really lame joke — and she really should know better — Kathryn Garforth Mitchell has a good post on a marine genetic resources meeting.

1. Swapping maize for indigenous crops won’t fix African food systems designed around markets and policies that still favour a narrow range of crops.
2. Cassava is both a food security fallback and a commercial crop in Uganda, but disease, climate change and declining diversity make its conservation an increasingly urgent form of insurance. But what about the markets and policies?
3. When livestock and crops fail, Ugandan pastoralists draw on wild plants for food, underlining how much food-system resilience still sits outside the formal agricultural system, with its markets and policies.
4. The Morton Arboretum is using living collections and genetic research to help the threatened butternut tree cope with changing conditions.
5. Webinar discusses global approaches to seed provenancing and transfer zones, useful for anyone who wants to move native plants without moving the wrong genes. Butternut very interested.
6. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Frozen Zoo preserves genetic material of plant and animal species that may disappear, from DNA to cells to organisms. Butternut volunteers.
7. New Indian facility combines ex situ fish conservation with community aquaculture. Good model for much of the above?
Published on October 6, 2026