- Lots of new products feature ancient grains; King Tut unavailable for comment.
- How genebanks work. Both Jeremy and Luigi available for comment and editing services.
- Crackdown on onion smuggling.
- Alleged myths about organic farming.
- First Americans ate seaweed.
Talking about neglected crops
AGFAX Radio was at the recent Arusha meeting on neglected crops and has a whole bunch of interviews online (with transcripts):
- National treasures
- International viewpoints
- Nutritional benefits
- Social aspects
- Why Tanzania is ahead
- Mighty baobab
- From weed to cash crop: Amaranth
- Improving the varieties
- The farmer’s view
- The market for underutilized vegetables
Don’t forget the follow-up e-conference is still on.
Nibbles: Insects, EMBRAPA, Prices, Cuba, Supermarkets
- Climate change threatens tropical insects and their pollination services.
- Brazil rises in world genebank rankings.
- Food price crisis advice summarized.
- Cuba “sustainable” agriculture at crossroads.
- Supermarkets bad for small farmers?
Nibbles: Tangled Bank
- If you’re here from Tangled Bank 102, welcome. Go vote, please. If you’re here anyway, go read Tangled Bank.
- Bleeding canker threatens British horse chestnuts.
- Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, fertilizers threaten the Drumstick Truffleclub.
- Michael Pollan welcomes higher food prices. And more on his new book on “nutritionism”: eat food (not individual nutrients); mostly plant-derived; in reasonable amounts.
- Breadfruit balls anyone? Try charging more for that delicacy, Michael!
- Or, indeed, this. Or any of these for that matter.
- The weird food stuff just keeps on coming. Now there’s buzz about camel cheese. And a Peanut Lolita to help it down?
- Horizon scanning spots 25 novel threats to biodiversity in UK. Agrobiodiversity apparently totally safe. Phew.
More spud news than anyone needs
Today’s crop of heartwarming potato stories come to you from Peru, the Philippines and India. First, Living in Peru has a fluff piece about how Peruvians are not eating enough potatoes, and that something must be done about it. It also says that “Peru has 2,800 of the 3,900 varieties of potatoes that exist in the world today.” I have no idea where they got those figures, whether they are close to the truth, or whether we even know the truth. But I’ll try to dig a little deeper and report back.
Then comes the Philippines Information Authority with news that a new potato variety is to be released in that country, bearing the name of the president. How sweet. The article says that the “original planting material was sourced” from the International Potato Centre (CIP), and previously had the codename “13.1.1”. The variety is blight-resistant and high in solids, and is supposed to be good for organic conditions. Now, it would have been interesting to know a little more about 13.1.1, but some rapid checking revealed nothing. Again, I will dig further.
And finally, news from India that a local farmer’s son, who went to the US for training in plant physiology and pathology, has now come back and set up a tissue culture lab on the family farm. Now that’s what I call technology transfer. But you wonder what kind of a farmer the father is. Not your typical Indian farmer, I’ll wager.