- Breeding better microbes for bigger cassava roots.
- Breeding new plants without sex.
- Breeding better naked oats so that chickens can eat them.
- Breeding better crops to cope with climate change.
- Breeding better crops with landraces and crop wild relatives.
Nibbles: Climate change & yields, Eucalyptus genome, Pacific breeders, Iranian barley breeders, Food Policy Report 2013, Titan, Gluten allergy, FGR podcast, Rice culture, NERICA and gender, WCC2014, CWR article, Malnutrition myths, Halophytes
- Yeah, on this climate change thing? We’re doomed.
- Oh crap, there’s another genome: eucalyptus this time. Here’s the paper, you geeks. Great news for koalas, whose genome we still await, incidentally. Yeah, where are we with that?
- SPC trains some breeders with Treaty money.
- I wonder if they were told about Evolutionary Plant Breeding.
- IFPRI has its new food policy report out. More on this later from us, I suspect.
- The Bonn Titan Arum blooms! Well, I’m calling it a crop wild relative.
- That gluten allergy? Don’t blame modern wheat varieties.
- Podcast on the importance of genetic resources to sustainable forests.
- Why rice? The Filipino view.
- And the African view. NERICA’s good for women. And bad.
- Bioversity blogs about World Cocoa Conference 2014, gets dates wrong. It’s on now.
- Crop wild relatives in The Scientist. But I’m biased…
- Busting malnutrition myths. Because they’re there.
- There’s probably a few myths out there about halophytes too.
Nibbles: Banana to SPC, Urban livestock, Ag & nutrition, Nutrition data, PPB, Brazil nut certification, Indian beer, Sheep genome
- Banana germplasm gets around.
- Kenyan urban cows get around. Not local breeds, though…
- Can agriculture deliver both resilience and nutrition? FAO thinks so.
- Yeah, about that: we’re gonna need better data.
- Participatory varietal selection in Nepal. Not as novel as made out here, surely.
- Brazil nut gets it all.
- Today’s beer story comes from India.
- Sorting the sheep from the goats, the molecular way.
Nibbles: De Schutter, Madagascar beans, Beer!, Cocktails!, CIAT strategy, Segenet, FGR, Risotto again, Domestication, Quinoa, Medieval workplan, Late blight
- “Productivism” skewered one last time. Until the next time.
- The Malagasy Bean Renaissance. No, really.
- The science of beer foam. Now there’s no excuse.
- Cocktails can be biodiverse too. You bet they can.
- CIAT’s new strategy makes a splash. Genebank front and centre.
- New ICIPE director tells all. She used to work at CIAT, did you know?
- First edition of The State of the World’s Forest Genetic Resources is out. Now to do something about it.
- Italy’s traditional rices preserved. Yes, Italy’s, you heard me.
- Agriculture was invented in the current interglacial. Why then, and not in the Eemian?
- Quinoa macronutrients exzzzzzzzamined.
- Your what-to-do-now guide to the medieval farm. Progress? Not what it’s cracked up to be.
- People of the Toluca valley! Expect researchers looking for wild potato genes resistant to late blight.
Nibbles: Early ag, Land data, CAP, African droughts, Risotto, Cowpea research, Reforestation
- Conditions at the dawn of Fertile Crescent agriculture were wetter and more, well, fertile. Been downhill ever since.
- Digitizing land data may not be good for women.
- European agricultural policies bad for diets.
- Africa will continue to face droughts. Looks like nobody can catch a break today.
- Ah, ok, here’s something good. Italian rice a hit in China. Gotta get your victories where you can.
- And some feel-good stuff on cowpea research in Mozambique.
- And to conclude our return from the slough of despond, some encouraging news about forest restoration.