Nutrition

Nibbles: Straw, Straw man, Synthetic straw man, Burning straw man, Banana diversity, Perennial grains, Right to Food, Fibrous meatballs, Fermentation, Colombian music

There’s a straw shortage? Well, of course there is.
And this week’s prize for most straw-clutching headline goes to “Mathematical study of photosynthesis clears the path to developing new super-crops”.
On the other hand, why bother mimicking C4 when you could just reinvent photosynthesis?
Speaking of C4, maybe less US maize will be turned into fuel next year.
The “portal” to the diversity of bananas gets an update. But don’t go looking for plantains.
Perennial grains still under discussion.
The Right To Food and Nutrition Watch – a name to sow confusion – has made its 2013 articles available.
Nutrition, these days, means adequate fibre, so of course the natural way to do that is to add citrus fibre to meatballs. Smacks forehead.
Science Friday does fermentation, with nutritional benefits.
And a little something for the weekend: Colombian artists sing in solidarity with farmers. Waiting for a review from Our Man in Cali.

Native tribes in the US want more food sovereignty.
People underreport the calories they consume shock. Research sponsored by Coke not a shock.
For nutritionally fortified food, fortify the fertilizers first.
German scientists working round to clock to decipher barley DNA and save Oktoberfest from climate-induced drought.
Climate change, however, is a double-edged sword for coconuts in Guyana.
2013 Global Hunger Index says world hunger remains “serious”.
Is all that scary enough to put you off your food?
Relax, it’s World Food Day, everything’s gonna be alright.

We missed the first UK fungus day yesterday.
And the new world record pumpkin. Love that wide-angle lens, BTW.
And a training course on plant genetic resources and genebank management.
But not plant biodiversity to regenerate more productive pastures.
Nor efforts to conserve navara red rice.
Kudos to Ghana, the first country with a national yam strategy.
And to Australia, for muddying the linguistic waters with something called a PlantBank.
Local farmers supply the food for school meals in Africa.
By far the strangest thing I’ve seen since a seed exploded a spliff some while ago.

Yet another blog post about heirloom apples. Why not heirloom, I don’t know, grains?
Yet another genebank opens.
On the other hand, can never have too many agrobiodiversity songs.
Banks? someone mention banks? Biodiversity hotspots are like (some) banks. Too big to fail.
Even crop wild relative hotspots?
1491: Amazon.
1493: New England. Hope Charles Mann won’t mind me borrowing his tropes.
Interesting use of technology to deliver interesting presentation on mainstreaming of nutrition in agricultural development. Anyone know how it was done?

The Guide for the Perplexed Entering the Maze of Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore. Great title.
IRRI DG blogs about Golden Rice on World Sight Day. In other news, there’s a World Sight Day.
Indian farmers ever more marginal.
If they were in Africa, they’d be producing nutritious school meals.
Book on camel biodiversity.
Turns out Jeremy is part of a movement that he apparently didn’t even know existed.
Are you involved in the UNFCCC agriculture negotiations? You’ll need this handy communications tool-kit. Agricultural biodiversity is in there somewhere.
Not sure that eels are, but maybe they should be.