Nutrition

Nibbles: Commons, Tom Wagner, CGIAR, Domestication presentation, Sophisticated urbanites, Vavilov’s potatoes in the news, Perennial crops, African drought, Aegean lathyrism, Heirlooms

The vocabulary of the commons.
An interview with Tom Wagner, a great tomato and potato breeder.
The CGIAR Consortium has a newsletter, with bits in it about what they’re doing on agrobiodiversity, genebanks (such as this one), all that stuff. But I guess news of this big Africa-wide food security project came in too late. Oh, here’s another one, on ICRISAT’s new chickpea.
Pat Heslop-Harrison on domestication. I am reliably informed he once extracted DNA from a fruit smoothie using nothing but household utensils and cleaning chemicals. Pat, is there a video?
Urban ag in the Philippines. For some reason, there’s been a ton of this sort of urban food stuff on the tubes lately. Like this for instance. And this (compare current orchards in London with historical ones). I may just have to blog about it. Oh dear, I just have.
The Glasgow Herald heralds the importance of Vavilov’s potatoes.
Long post with lots of different bits of info on lots of perennial crops.
Monitoring drought in Africa via pretty maps. And more pretty maps in search of a use.
Ancient Aegean lathyrism? Dirk alerted.
A keeper of seeds does his stuff near Pittsburgh.

BBC says we can feed the world through technology. And why not. The Times of India, meanwhile, didn’t get the memo.
Bill Gates at the IFAD Governing Council will probably say the same thing today. And put his money where his mouth is.
CIMMYT Director General said the same recently at an Economist conference. Funny how genebanks are rarely among the saviour technologies being touted.
It’s all about the scaling up, isn’t it?
Tell that to the Lake Chad fisherfolk who are now turning to farming.
And, in another universe, sushi seeks protection.
Buffel vs Rhodes in the Arabian peninsula.

Modern Chinese agronomist praises ancient Chinese agriculture, possibly gets in trouble.
Domesticating trees is still the next big thing.
Transform agriculture for a greener economy, says SciDev.net.
VoA on genebanks, including Svalbard.
Gerbil enthusiasts tackle millets. Yes, gerbils.

1.24 kg of book about Biodiversity in Agriculture.
Everybody’s already linked to The Economist on The Nutrition Puzzle but we’re not proud.
And lots of people have linked to the biblical garden story; we’re proud to point out that one of the plants was a culturally important cultivated citrus.
And while we’re in biblical mood, here’s a culturally important animal to go with that citrus.
Biopirates plundering the oceans’ genetic resources must be stopped with international agreements, ‘cos that’ll work.
Big session on Food security, climate change and climate variability at big scientific meeting. Eventually we’ll hear more.
As when UK Chief Scientist tells Voice of America about agriculture and climate change.
Small farmers in Mexico are making a difference to agrobiodiversity and politics.
Fruitipedia! 433 fruits and counting.
16th Triennial Symposium of International Society for Tropical Root Crops in the works.
Bayer CropScience buys into the Texas A&M University wheat genebank?
Seeds survive in the permafrost. Good news for Svalbard.
Seeds don’t survive in the permafrost. Bad news for Vikings?
The connection between the the engravings found on ancient graves and current cattle brands in the same general area. Turkana, that is. Not much is the answer. Pity.
And how did they make all that meat and milk safe for use, I hear you ask.

Crops for the Future has news of a symposium to promote underutilized food resources in May.
Or you could go to a report on fibre, an overused resource. I love how they blame the Limeys for all that’s wrong with nutrition.
Potato Professionals hear the good news about in situ conservation using disease-free microplants.
The archaeology of maize among the Mississippians.
The archaeology of Mike Jackson among the Andean roots and tubers.
Thomson Reuters Foundation has a big package on agricultural innovation. And many more topics you can trust.