Nutrition

November 28, 2012November 28, 2012

Nibbles: Agriculture and climate change and GM and nutrition

Farmers are “the canaries in the mine when it comes to climate change,” says The Financial Times. Get the whole report as a PDF.
Bioversity says it has climate change covered with a new Seeds for Needs project. Is there an echo in here?
Farming First covers climate change in an infographic.
Avenue of the Baobabs in Madagascar burnt down. Better edit those factsheets.
Heirloom maize farmers talk sense on GM corn shock …
… but Punjab doesn’t care. Invites Monsanto “To put agriculture diversification on the fast track”.

And we’ve got nutrition in spades:

Jessica Fanzo wins the Carasso Prize for her great research on nutrition. Proud to call her a friend.
There was a roundtable associated with the Carasso Prize. Lawrence Haddad blogs about it.
Pity that roundtable clashed with Workshop: ‘Adding Value to Local Foods for Food and Nutrition Security: Myth or Strategic Option’ in the Caribbean.
Will the Caribbean warm to finger millet? Zester Daily just wants to share the gluten-free goodness.
Bere whisky. No, you read that right. Bere as in barley, not as in beer. But then, barley is in beer. Where’s an etymologist when you need one?

November 28, 2012

The whole food nexus in under 12 minutes

OK, so it isn’t strictly about agricultural biodiversity, and there are some statements one might cavil at, but you gotta hand it to David McWilliams: everything that ails global food in one groovy animated presentation.

Solutions? Not so much.

November 23, 2012November 23, 2012

Nibbles: Polymotu, Korean genebank, Arizona fruits, B4N, Rice song, Medieval food

A “grand, almost surreal vision” of coconut conservation.
A grandish vision of ex situ crop conservation in Korea.
A very down-to-earth vision of fruit conservation in Arizona.
An extremely wacky vision of the post-agricultural world.
A workmanlike vision of biodiversity for nutrition project.
A musical vision of rice husking.
A historical vision of food in the Middle Ages.

November 21, 2012May 2, 2014

Nibbles: Vegetables, UK funding, Oz funding, Oz genebank, Jefferson, Hawaiian food, Markets, Tree seeds, NUS journal, Geographic targeting, ITPGRFA, Arabica and climate, Protected areas, European farmland biodiversity, Sustainable use, Ethiopian seed video

Palestinian rooftop gardens. Including crucifers, no doubt.
Brits support work with rice and wheat wild relatives. Among other things. They’ll probably use some of these genomics things.
Aussies support sweet potatoes. HarvestPlus rejoices.
That new Australian genebank. Will it have any sweet potatoes?
The agricultural legacy of Thomas Jefferson. It doesn’t say here, but I bet he was into sweet potato.
Hawaiian menus. What, no sweet potato?
Forget biotech, the road to sexy agriculture is via the supermarket. Where you can buy sweet potato. Maybe even of the organic persuasion.
Or maybe better tree seeds. Even in the Nordic countries. Or the US. Is cacao a tree?
Plans for special edition of Sustainability on neglected crops. Like amaranth?
Geographic targeting reaches roots/tubers. Using this newfangled atlas? Or no?
Treaty and Consortium love-in filmed. Thanks for sharing. It’s all part of this CGIAR perestroika thing, no doubt.
What that Kew coffee extinction paper really said.
Protected areas need work. Especially for coffee (see above).
Yeah but protected areas is not the only way to go, and Europe now has a bunch of biodiversity indicators for farmland. I guess it’s all part of some big plan.
Policy brief on sustainable use of PGR. Or, as we used to call it, on farm conservation.
Which you can kind of see happening here.

November 7, 2012November 7, 2012

Nibbles: Biodiversity economics, ICARDA social network, Beyond food miles, Heirlooms on BBC, Cannabis, Research funding, Cacao diversity, Agriculture from the air, Sustainable intensification example, Research whine, Japanese botanic garden visit, European PGR network, Tribal Glycene, Youth in agriculture

Oxford Review of Economic Policy has special volume on biodiversity economics. Not much ag, though, settle down.
ICARDA announces on Twitter the existence of a new Facebook page which looks a bit like the old one.
It’s the fertilizer miles, stupid.
Great British Food Revival does heirloom carrots. Oh and beer.
Good news for a particular agricultural biodiversity subsector from Amsterdam and Colorado. The Dude unavailable for comment. For obvious reasons.
If you’re from Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda and are doing research on Neglected and Underutilized Species you’ll be interested in this call or research proposals from ISF.
Bioversity deconstructs that paper on the spatial analysis of Theobroma diversity. I still don’t quite get why they didn’t do the gap analysis.
Farming from the air. And more along the same lines. Or polygons, I suppose I should say. Can you estimate diversity from the air? I bet you can.
Sustainable intensification in (sort of) action.
Damn rice farmers not playing ball.
Oxford botany geeks visit Japan, identify wood of bench in noodle bar.
13th meeting ECPGR Steering Committee. All the documents you’ll need. And then some.
Soybean as a vegetable. Possibly an acquired taste.
How to keep young people on the farm? “Perhaps the first point to recognise is that the evidence base on which to build policy and programmes is frighteningly thin.”