Organic agriculture

February 17, 2009February 18, 2009

Speaking of tubers …

“They’re the Ingrid Bergman to oca’s Marilyn Monroe.”

Rhizowen, the freshest new (old) voice in weird and wonderful veg is at it again with another go at Crap Crops of the Incas. This time the object of his adoration is ulluco. I wonder how they’d do on Vanuatu?

February 4, 2009February 4, 2009

Nibbles: Kenya vegetables, Diet diversity, Armyworms

Slumdog Veggiegrower. Via.
Australians contend diets need to be diverse. Another shrimp placed on barbie.
Great summary of the Liberian “armyworm” situation from CABI. And they say taxonomy is boring.

January 22, 2009January 22, 2009

Nibbles: Banana, Pigs, Bees, Wiki, Cat, Award, Genomics

Banana going extinct. Again.
Pigs are good weedkillers.
Bee bailout in the UK.
India has an agricultural Wikipedia. With a blog. Via.
Do you know this cat?
SEED 2009 Awards for entrepreneurs. Found at the LEISA blog.
TED talk on building better wines through genomics.

January 21, 2009January 20, 2009

Gorge yourself on chocolate…videos

The great How Stuff Works website has a whole series of videos on how to make chocolate. If only the World Cacao Federation had got in touch with them!

January 14, 2009January 14, 2009

Nibbles: Grazing, Blog

Sheep grazing on natural grassland taste better and are better for the envioronment.
Student goes around world looking for seeds. How’s it going, Adam?

1. Swapping maize for indigenous crops won’t fix African food systems designed around markets and policies that still favour a narrow range of crops.
2. Cassava is both a food security fallback and a commercial crop in Uganda, but disease, climate change and declining diversity make its conservation an increasingly urgent form of insurance. But what about the markets and policies?
3. When livestock and crops fail, Ugandan pastoralists draw on wild plants for food, underlining how much food-system resilience still sits outside the formal agricultural system, with its markets and policies.
4. The Morton Arboretum is using living collections and genetic research to help the threatened butternut tree cope with changing conditions.
5. Webinar discusses global approaches to seed provenancing and transfer zones, useful for anyone who wants to move native plants without moving the wrong genes. Butternut very interested.
6. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Frozen Zoo preserves genetic material of plant and animal species that may disappear, from DNA to cells to organisms. Butternut volunteers.
7. New Indian facility combines ex situ fish conservation with community aquaculture. Good model for much of the above?
Published on October 6, 2026