- Setting up a network of high potato diversity sites for in situ conservation. It has a Facebook page, so “Like” it.
- Some of that diversity will no doubt find its way to Lima’s markets.
- If not, Leaping and Learning will tell you how. And why.
- There’s a lot of diversity in genebanks too, of course. And thank goodness for that!
- Potatoes are important in Africa too.
- And Japan. But do they go with eels?
- What are potatoes like for micronutrients? Probably better than you think. But could be better?
- If not, you can always pickle them. Can’t you?
Nibbles: Global health journal, Agroecology, Sachs & the MVP, British trees survey, Tunisian pear disease, Obama & biofuels, Seed Savers, Chaffey, Indian phenotyping
- The Lancet goes open source. Well, kinda.
- Alt-World Food Prize winners. None of whom are at the Conference on Agroecology for Sustainable Food Systems in Europe: A Transformative Agenda, though.
- I guess there’s no chance of Jeffrey Sachs landing the actual World Food Prize. Well, you never know.
- If you’re in Britain and you get the urge to measure a tree, now you can share your results.
- Maybe the Tunisians should do something similar, at least for their pears, before it’s too late.
- “The plan notes biofuels have an important role to play in increasing our energy security, fostering rural economic development and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.” Riiiight.
- “We started doing this before heirlooms were fashionable. We knew in our hearts it was the right thing to do.”
- Quite a bit of agrobiodiversity in the latest Plant Cuttings.
- India goes in for high throughput phenotyping for drought tolerance.
Ancient American agrobiodiversity podcasts galore, and more
No sooner had I digested (as it were) Jeremy’s latest offering, that I ran across two other recent podcasts also on subjects related to ancient American agriculture. Archaeologist Dr David Lentz discusses the Pompeii of Central America in the latest Academic Minute. And environmental journalist Sam Eaton talks about the resurgence of amaranth in Mexico. Never rains but it pours.
Well, since it’s raining so hard, let me throw in a couple of related tidbits. If you’ve got a paper on amaranth or any other similarly downtrodden crop, you have until 15 July to put in an abstract for the 3rd International Conference on Neglected and Underutilized Species, to be held in Accra, Ghana on 25-27 September 2013. And if you’re Brazilian, and you’re interested in studying agrobiodiversity in Latin America, including NUS no doubt, you have until June 30 to apply for a studentship. And finally there is the IX Simposio Internacional de Recursos Genéticos para América Latina y el Caribe in El Salvador in November.
LATER: Talk about zeitgeist. Here’s another little something for the weekend for all you NUS aficionados: there’s a special issue of Sustainability in the works on “Underutilized Plant Species: Leveraging Food and Nutritional Security, and Income Generation.” Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2013.
Nibbles: Brazil flora & urban ag, Telling species apart, Canary seed for humans, Training breeders, Solitary bees, Tajik protected area, Rennell Island, Nordic grubs, Belize TV
- Brazil’s flora moves online. And its agriculture into its favelas.
- Taxonomy 101.
- Wish the people who wrote this press release on “canary seed” had taken a taxonomy course. It’s Phalaris canariensis, it turns out.
- African breeders to be trained at UCDavis. Ok, but what about WACCI? What’s going on? Cornell-Davis smackdown?
- Further proof, if any were needed, of the importance of wild bees.
- Tajikistan gets its first World Heritage Site. Includes most of the Pamirs, so surely a whole lot of agricultural biodiversity, both wild and cultivated, plant and animal. Not that that was the prime mover for protection, probably.
- Incidentally, there’s a list of World Heritage Sites in danger, and it includes Rennell Island in the Solomons. The reason I bring it up is that it is famous for a local coconut variety. Hope that’s not endangered!
- Nordic Food Lab gets money to experiment with cooking insects.
- Belize TV looks to agrobiodiversity to cope with climate change.
Nibbles: Mapping by phone, Samoan greens, Rice podcast, Juniper threat, Wild yams, Food book, Coconut conservation
- If you can map neglected diseases by phone, can you map neglected crops? I bet you can.
- It’s the turn of Samoans to be chided for not eating enough leafy greens.
- I had no idea AfricaRice had a podcast.
- Now we gotta worry about G&T too? Enough, already.
- Video on the wild yams of Sri Lanka. Not just yams, though, by the look of it.
- 100 recipes to understand the history of food? Count me in.
- More on the Polymotu Concept from our friends at SPC. Great gig if you can get it.