- Species flying poleward.
- FAO unveils pulse infographic. No word on whether any are harvestable by machine.
- Potato farmer adds value the old-fashioned way.
- Talking of old, here’s a really old horse.
- And the oldest evidence of fermentation for food preservation. But you’ll need a strong stomach.
- KitKat is certified crap.
- How (and Why) Farmers Maintain Crop Diversity: The Book. Some reviews.
- And here’s a specific example from India.
- And here, courtesy of Bioversity’s Ann Tutwiler, is why farmers need some help sometimes.
- Oh and here’s another one. People visit ICRISAT genebank in Niger, see stuff they like.
Varietal diversity in pulse nutritional quality to be documented, maybe even used
Good to see FAO taking the lead in pulling together nutritional data on pulses, in celebration of the International Year of Pulses. Especially since variety-level information will be sought, according to FAO Nutrition Officer Ruth Charrondière .
…if a micronutrient deficiency is identified within a certain region or population, governments and nutritionists can pinpoint the varieties of pulses that contain the highest levels of the micronutrients, and encourage their production on farms and home gardens in these areas. Governments can also use the data to enrich food based dietary guidelines and national food composition tables. Furthermore, researchers and the private sector can use the food composition data to develop new, nutrient-rich varieties of pulses through cross-breeding and selective breeding, and include these improved varieties in mass production programmes.
There is demand for that sort of thing.
Nibbles: Meta-organic, Wild ginseng, Ancient Australia, Insect nutrition, King Corn, Early nutrition, Funny olives, CWR control, Damn dams
- The latest meta-analysis of organic agriculture says it can feed the world.
- The latest update on saving the wild ginseng adds pretty much nothing to previous updates.
- The latest look at Aboriginal land burning says it did no damage.
- The latest study of insects as feed says they’re good for you. Still no word on whether they’re good.
- Not sure whether I’ve ever seen a study linking biotech corn for biofuels with the abandonment of rotation, but it makes sense. And more.
- The latest investigation of early childhood nutrition still says it’s important.
- The latest Italian food scam involves painting olives.
- The latest pean to crop wild relatives says it’s still about control, man.
- The latest report on dams again says you have to be careful.
Nibbles: History edition
- No, I don’t think the history of potatoes is at an end, but I know what they mean.
- The history of rubber in pics.
- The history of the wheat dwarfing gene.
- Svalbard makes history.
- Sicily goes back into its history for its daily bread.
- Another foothold in history for Gary Nabhan.
- History, shmistory, we need to look forward. Biohacking is the future of food. Say twelve year olds.
Ban or breed?
I’m not sure I was aware of the fact that grasspea (khesari dal, or Lathyrus sativus) was actually banned in parts of India due to its toxicity. Devinder Sharma, a food and trade policy analyst, thinks the ban should not be lifted, International Year of Pulses notwithstanding. Instead, alternative crops should be promoted, such as pigeonpea (arhar, or Cajanus cajan). It’s interesting that there’s no Indian grasspea in the genebanks that Genesys knows about (red), 1 in stark comparison to pigeonpea (blue).
Lathyrism is a problem in situations where grasspea is pretty much the only thing you have to eat. In former times, when famines were more frequent, the ban probably made sense. But is this still the case? And in any case there’s also lots of research going on low-neurotoxin varieties. A ban is hardly likely to provide much of an incentive for such breeding work.