- How is Europe doing at saving its threatened plants? Paper and website available. How many crop wild relatives are threatened in Europe? I think it should be possible to work it out…
- Bioversity colleagues summarize their work on homegardens.
- Introduced plants can be useful too!
- Soil Association continues to quibble about need to double food supply.
- ICARDA looks for heat-beating wheat.
- “Coconut Biodiversity for Prosperity” meet coming up soon in Kerala. Local press excited.
- Jeremy sets the world straight on Pavlovsk.
- Kew et al. set the world straight on how many plants there are in the world. Jury still out on the number of crop wild relatives.
- Vulnerability of vegetation to climate change varies around the world. Well there’s a thing now. Nice maps.
- If you’re running a livestock cryobank I’ve got the software for you.
Nibbles: Fish, Wild plants, Tree planting
- Aquaculture maps galore.
- IUCN declares victory in whole sustainable wild plants harvesting thing.
- Planting trees in Ethiopia.
Nobel Conference: Making Food Good
Speaking of Nobel and all that, the 46th Annual Nobel Conference on 5-6 October “will examine the question ‘what makes food good?’ from a variety of vantage points, including those of nutrition, taste, health, agricultural biodiversity, and food security”. Some good people on the bill. By the way, for anyone who is the tiniest bit confused, this isn’t at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden but at St Peter in Minnesota, USA.
Nibbles: Cancun, Maya in Haiti, Indian Food, Pavlovsk, Currywurst, Banana biofuel, Book, Radio, Beer, East African cattle breed, Climate change and altitude, Amazon, Lycopersicon, Pollinator plants, Phenology, Economics
- Good COP, bad COP? Registration opens for Agriculture and Rural Development Day 2010, at COP16, the Climate Change COP.
- Maya in Haiti? Jamaica? Institute expands its reach.
- India considering making the right to food an actual right to food. But how?
- Science magazine shares the Pav-Love-sk.
- “From 28 August to 3 October, the Curried Sausage Field is open to visitors on Diedersdorfer Weg in Berlin. This is BfR’s second didactic plant labyrinth.” Don’t even ask.
- Bananas for juice. Power type juice.
- New book explores history, future of international agriculture. Anyone reading it?
- Hear Bioversity’s DG warn Pacific islanders of fast food health risks.
- “Without the yeast, beer would be nonalcoholic and noncarbonated.” Yeah, but then what would be the point? The Ecological Society of America considers beer — and issues a delightful apology.
- Video on saving Ankole cattle.
- Amphibians find it hard to move higher in response to climate change. And plants? Crops? Wild relatives? Has anyone done the modelling?
- The pristine Amazon. Not.
- Wild tomatoes and drought.
- The best plants for pollinators.
- When are different crops sown around the world? Gotta love meta-analyses.
- Apparently conservationists interested in the economics of it all must abandon the “straightjacket of the Walrasian core.” So now there’s no excuse.
Agriculture improves nutrition improves agriculture
[W]e know that if we can get better micronutrients and get better total nutrition into kids in particular, we know that we can save many, many, many lives, and we know that we can do that in a more cost-effective way. Similarly, we know having healthier populations can contribute to food production and improved economic outcomes that then lead to improved nutrition. So it works in both directions, and we’re committed to making that link a productive one.
That’s Rajiv Shah, head of USAID, in an article in Nature Medicine, noted and linked by our friend Jess. Only one question remains: where you going to source the micronutrients, Rajiv?