Nutrition

January 29, 2010January 28, 2010

Vote for your favourite nutrition innovation

The finalists of the Improved Nutrition Solutions Through Innovation competition are up on Ashoka’s Changemakers site. One project promises that a “native rainforest food for school lunches improves child health while motivating reforestation.” And another wants to produce nutritional supplements from Moringa. It may not be enormously innovative, but I personally like Gardens for Health best, because it has the least of the silver bullet about it, and the most agrobiodiversity.

Gardens for Health enables people living with HIV/AIDS to improve their nutrition, health, and treatment adherence through sustainable agriculture. GHI provides access to land and patient capital for community gardens, seeds and tree seedlings for family home gardens, technical assistance in sustainable agriculture and nutrition, and market linkages

Go vote. You have until 8 February.

January 27, 2010January 23, 2015

Nibbles: GIPB, NPGS, Dogs for conservation, Harare gardens, Goat milk value added, Equator Prize, Humanitarian relief, Peruvian maize, Pseudo-cereals, Katine, Vavilov goes web 2.0, Travel, Haggis ban, African road datasets, Dyes, Adaptation pix, Baltic, AnGR, Jatropha

GIPB revamps its website. Knowledge Resource Centre is ver. 4.0, no less.
US National Plant Germplasm System explained to Canadians. Why? They have their own!
Armadillo sniffing dogs.
More urban farming in Zimbabwe.
Interesting stuff you can make with goat milk.
Who do you like for Equator Prize 2010? Avatar? No, wait, that’s something else. Well, actually…
Nutrition for humanitarian workers.
Large-eared white maize is ‘cultural heritage’ of Peru. So that’s all good then.
Minor cereals and a gluten-free diet.
Wanna talk to Katine? Ask about what the project is doing with/about agrobiodiversity, of course!
Nikolay tweets!
Agricultural and other assorted musings along the Mekong. Can’t help thinking that if you somehow aggregated all similar observations and geo-referenced them you’d come up with a pretty interesting picture of agriculture worldwide.
A blow for Scottish agrobiodiversity and cuisine.
Digitizing Africa’s roads.
Natural dyes 101.
IUCN photos of climate change adaptation. Includes agriculture! Well, sort of.
Nordic agricultural scientists to discuss climate change adaptation. Grow bananas?
Breeding Strategies for Sustainable Management of Animal Genetic Resources from FAO. Via.
ATREE questions Jatropha.

January 22, 2010January 22, 2010

Nibbles: Tomatoes, Fattipuffs, Thinifers, Rice, Policy, IFAP, Small oats, Yams, Drought insurance, Siberian nomads, Cereal miscegenation, Fiji breadfruit, Introgression, Mudchute, Gordon Edgar, Coconuts, Eels, Cat worship, Biofuel breeding, Perennials

Some heirloom tomatoes resist late blight, others not so much.
Overweight or obese Americans at 68%, and holding steady. No epidemic, say free-thinkers.
“No wonder kids are gaining weight.” But they aren’t, see above. (Where’s that sarc-mark when you need it?)
Hydroelectric scheme to save Ifugao rice terraces, cut carbon emissions. W-w-w?
Climate Change and Agrobiodiversity updates us on hot policy news. Thanks.
IFAP updates its farmers on agricultural biodiversity. Thanks again.
Small oats genebank evaluations make big progress with young crofters.
Yam festivities in the Philippines.
Psst, you want drought insurance for your camel herd? Oh, and Jeremy wants to know why this IFPRI stuff didn’t find its way into the story.
“The ability to roam freely enables people and animals to exploit or avoid a wide range of natural and manmade habitats.” Still no cure for cancer.
Barley helps wheat. But how, exactly? I think we should be told.
Fiji sets up breadfruit genebank Which will hopefully help local agricultural entrepreneurs.
Anastasia on introgression. At length.
The biggest urban farm in Europe.
A bite of Cheese(monger).
Coconuts bad for birds bad for soil bad for plants bad for crabs. Ok then, let’s cut the damn things down, shall we?
Cockney cuisine takes a turn for the worse. Well would you Adam and Eve it?
Egyptian cat temple pix. Miaow.
“…the first biofuel crop breeding programs for low-input systems are likely to accelerate progress by focusing on grass–legume bicultures.”
And another from the Land Institute: “…harvested perennial
grasslands provide valuable ecological benchmarks for agricultural sustainability.”

January 20, 2010January 20, 2010

Nibbles: School gardens, Nabhan, Reforestation, Swine flu, Boar, Nutrinomics, Medieval sheep, Market, Acacia, Livestock breeds, Bees, Buffalo breeding, Quinoa

Resource list for setting up a school garden. Take that, Flanagan.
Gary “Eco-gastronaut” Nabhan goes viral.
Smithsonian goes native. Trees, that is.
GRAIN video delves into origin of H1N1.
There are boar farms of England?
Nutrition advice needs to take genetics into account.
Tracing the changing morphology of British post-medieval sheep. Well, someone has to do it.
Thai floating market. A tourist trap, I know. But photogenic.
Kew’s plant of the day is gum arabic. Wait, Kew has a plant of the day? Is there no end to their ingenuity?
And GlobalDiv has a Breed of the Month. BTW, the same source has a thing on the XVIII Plant and Animal Genome Conference (Jan. 2010).
Diverse diet for healthier bees, says BBC
Breeding bovines in Asia.
Cursed quinoa.

January 19, 2010January 19, 2010

Backyard livestock, what is it good for? Asthma!

A fascinating post from our friends over at The Ethicurean makes the case for backyard livestock as a valuable component of making life dirtier so as to avoid the diseases of cleanliness. Marc R. writes:

[R]ecent science is hinting that early childhood exposure to domestic animals can actually protect against the chronic condition [of asthma], so well-cared-for backyard animals like chickens or miniature goats could actually have an additional, unexpected benefit.

Marc goes on to summarize (and link to) various threads that address the “hygiene hypothesis,” a good starting point for anyone who wants to learn more about the possibility of strengthening the immune system by offering it a few more friendly sparring partners. To which I would add Seth Roberts on fermented foods, although the links to health take a little hunting down.