- Tangled Bank 101.
- From ELDIS 1: Farmers in Malawi learn best from one another.
- From ELDIS 2: Improving crop-livestock systems in Ethiopia.
- Nature and Science on the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).
- Barley makes a come-back? No, it’s not beer-related, Jeremy.
- A call for respect for Nagpur’s agricultural college in its centenary year. Seconded.
- Internets buzzing this morning. Check out a NatGeo video on how organic cacao is saving the rainforest in the Dominican Republic.
- CTA wants one laptop per farmer. Not just to “make better PowerPoints,” though.
Nibbles: Bees, weird food, wagyu cattle, medieval agriculture, beer
- India to research bees in detail.
- Yak knob to go with your yak milk, sir?
- George Lucas does his bit to conserve a weird cattle breed, the Japanese wagyu. Well, kinda.
- Was the typical English village founded around 900 AD as a result of monastically-driven agricultural innovation?
- Diverse healthy reasons to drink beer; Luigi unavailable for comment.
Nibbles: AGRA, Andean potatoes, farmer factsheets, tequila, Dogon, yak milk
- AGRA’s first eight PhD students get to work.
- Papa Andina Regional Initiative assessed by CGIAR CAPrI. Can’t be bothered reading the whole thing? Try this.
- Factsheets for farmers in Kenya and Uganda; Luigi’s MIL not available for comment.
- Tequila for lunch: Jeremy comments: “Wish I could be at this seminar, at the University of California, Davis”.
- Dogon agriculture 101.
- Got yak milk?
Nibbles: New Agriculturist, nutrition
- Latest New Agriculturist online with nice piece on the alpaca y mucho mas…
- A call for the consumption of more traditional foods in Botswana — “one-stop shop for the best health and nutrition.”
Mo’ better beans
Iowa State University has been awarded $450,000 by the US Agency for International Development to improve beans in Rwanda. The University’s Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods will work with local partners to see whether improving yields will result in beans that are more nutritious or more marketable or — Jackpot! — both. Nice idea, and if it succeeds a valuable contribution to fighting hunger and poverty in the region. As ever with this sort of project, however, one wonders whether specific steps will be taken to preserve the existing bean biodiversity that improved varieties will almost certainly displace.