- New Year Resolution No. 1: Take the mashua survey.
- New Year Resolution No. 2: Give the Food Programme a break, it can be not bad. As in the case of the recent episode featuring Irish Seed Savers and the only uniquely British veg.
- New Year Resolution No. 3: Learn to appreciate hour-plus talks by CG Centre DGs. And other publicity stunts…
- New Year Resolution No. 4: Give a damn about the next genome. Well, actually…
- New Year Resolution No. 5: Try to understand what people think may be going on with malnutrition in India. If anything.
- New Year Resolution No. 6: Marvel at new maps without fretting about how difficult to use they may be.
- New Year Resolution No. 7: Do not snigger at the British honours system.
- New Year Resolution No. 8: Disengage from the whole are-GMOs-good-or-bad? thing. It’s the wrong question, and nobody is listening anyhow.
- New Year Resolution No. 9: Ignore the next lactose tolerance evolution story. They’re all the same.
- New Year Resolution No. 10: Stop obsessing about beer. But not yet. No, not yet.
- Happy 2013!
Nibbles: Breeding, Real farmers, Plant clinics, Nutrition research, Beer futures, Mexican spices
- The Campaign for Real Farming raves about a rant on open breeding.
- Steve Savage counters with a rant against raving food movement loonies.
- CABI opens plant clinics in China, thousands more on the way worldwide.
- A paper on Guiding principles for operational investments to prioritise nutrition in agriculture and rural development projects.
- What 2013 holds for beer and beer lovers.
- What can you tell Rachel Laudan about spices in Mexico and the Columbian Exchange?
Nibbles: Maya nut, Afroculinaria, Biofortification, CGIAR genebanks, FAO data, Rice drought, Bioregions, Sustainable intensification, Caviar, Beer
- Had no idea there were so many Maya nuts around. Glad Jeremy reminded me. And some Central Asian nuts for balance.
- The best of Afroculinaria.
- The best of HarvestPlus. Oh for the time to do a mashup. Anyway, does this count? And what’s that you say? You have a paper you’re writing on the subject?
- CIP genebank sees CIMMYT’s ISO accreditation (certification? whatever) and raises it a new piece of software. ILRI genebank doubles down.
- One Data Portal to Rule them All. At FAO. Somewhat underwhelming, frankly.
- Rice boffins target drought-stressed villages
- New map of bioregions. In the Daily Mail?
- Sustainable intensification debate gets nowhere. Pretty cynical note to leave you with, don’t you think?
- Ok, so here’s something a little more festive. California caviar.
- And some beer to go with that.
Nibbles: Rice farming, Funny teas, Funny fruits, Christmas fare, Online course, Seasonal genomes, Malaysia shares, School shares
- The most beautiful rice farm in the world. No, wait.
- Jasmine tea gets protection. But does it need it? Let’s ask the South Africans what they’re doing with their tea.
- Today’s funny fruit picture. Think it’s one of these Cuban mutants?
- How many micronutrients in a Mexican Christmas dinner? And how many in a British one, featuring parsnips of course.
- People’s University has online Appreciation Programme on Sustainable Management of Biodiversity starting January 2013.
- First farmers were first carpenters.
- And today’s genome story is very seasonally appropriate. Oh no, here’s another one!
- Malaysia implements the ITPGRFA. Cool, but why is that even news?
- School sends okra seeds to Haiti. But… No, I’m not playing the Grinch on this one, it’s too sweet.
Brainfood: Core collections, Romanian pigs, Commons, Valuation, Biofortification, Yam characterization, Pompeii diet, Rice grain genetics
- Maximizing genetic differentiation in core collections by PCA-based clustering of molecular marker data. It works. In simulations, to be fair.
- Study of rare traditional pork breeds concerning the aspect of biodiversity conservation. Mangalitsa is what you want, apparently.
- Open Variety Rights: Rethinking the Commodification of Plants. A “protected commons”? Sounds a bit like the ITPGRFA to me.
- Natural and cultural heritage in mountain landscapes: towards an integrated valuation. Yeah, but does your cultural heritage include things like agricultural biodiversity?
- Fortifying plants with the essential amino acids lysine and methionine to improve nutritional quality. Conventional breeding hasn’t worked. But has it been for want of trying? Just askin’.
- Genetic and phenotypic diversity in a germplasm working collection of cultivated tropical yams (Dioscorea spp.). Relationships among species, synonyms, duplicates, yada yada.
- Roman food refuse: urban archaeobotany in Pompeii, Regio VI, Insula 1. Romans ate a Mediterranean diet. Still no cure for cancer.
- Genetic bases of rice grain shape: so many genes, so little known. Why bother? Just askin’.