Podcasts

June 23, 2015June 23, 2015

Nibbles: Pope, CGIAR, Agroecology, ABS, Food shortage, World flora, Nutella, Bees, GMOs, CC & wheat, CC & legumes, EU satellite, Seed saving, Wheat breeding, Strawberry breeding, Adopt-a-crop, Organic tea, Malagasy yams, Seed app, Ebola seeds, Sorghum spoons

And we’re back! While we were away…

…the Pope pontificated on climate change and GMOs, among other things.
And so did the CGIAR.
Boffins in the UK suggested that agroecology might be important to sustainable intensification. No word on whether the CGIAR is listening.
Bioversity asked for contributions on whether ABS can support farmers. No word on whether anyone is listening.
And The Economist asked: who cares, anyway?
Google said it would help botanists catalogue all plants.
Nutella was bad, and then ok again.
Bees were again found to be important to agriculture, but not all bees.
The pros and cons of GMOs were trotted out again. And again.
Climate change was blamed for smaller loaves of bread. Which as far as I can tell might not be a totally bad thing.
And for the need to grow drought-resistant legumes.
The EU launched a satellite to monitor crops.
Meanwhile, people just got on with it, in their own, sometimes weird, way…
…breeding wheat. Even organic wheat. Even perennial. Even in Scotland.
…breeding strawberries. Even with wild relatives.
…or just adopting the raw materials of breeding.
Growing organic tea in China.
Conserving yams in Madagascar.
Trying to find the appropriate seeds to grow in Kenya.
And giving probably inappropriate seeds to Ebola-hit farmers.
Which they can now eat using sorghum spoons.

May 30, 2015June 1, 2015

Nibbles: Seeds, IPES report, Old wheat & bread, Twiga, Coca eradication, Double cheese, Breeding apples, Rose collection, Old tea, Insect as food, Fishing industry, UNFCCC negotiations, Famine book, Comms toolkit

Seeds scoped in the Pacific. I doubt the region will feature much in the Access to Seeds Index. Not unless it features community seed production groups like Atauro in East Timor.
Wanna reform the food system? Here’s the theory.
And here’s the practice, at least for wheat (and bread). Though some would probably beg to differ.
Blowing up African retail, one banana at the time.
Biological control of coca. What could possibly go wrong.
The reason for the holes in swiss cheese? We finally have the data.
But personally I prefer halloumi.
There are patents. There is PVP. And there are trademarks. A podcast on apple breeding, if you can believe it.
A whole bunch of heirloom roses all in one place.
Museum boffins find stale tea, Brits go ape.
Go on, have an insect.
Or maybe a nice piece of fish. While you can.
Confused about the UNFCCC negotiations about agriculture? Farming First has you covered.
Famine is history. Discuss.
NSF toolkit for communicating science. Maybe I should have read this before Nibbling.

May 12, 2015May 11, 2015

Nibbles: Biofortification, NUS, Wakehurst Place, Cheesy map, Seeds2Zim, Food bibliography, Eucalypt genome, Oregano in the US, CFC, Rotations, Malaria drugs, Quinoa in Colorado, Pacific pineapple, Rhubarb event, Mango festival, Araucaria, American chestnut, Potato casserole, Coffee breeding, Tulips galore, George Harrison Shull, Seed saving, Chinese agriculture, European agroforestry, Eat This Podcast

Webinar on biofortification, today.
Book on Asian underutilized plant species, which we somehow missed when it came out in 2014. Unless it didn’t.
The Millennium Seed Bank isn’t just great in and of itself, it also sits in a wonderful garden: the man who has been keeping that going for the past decade has just retired. Best wishes!
A map of French cheese. Internet surrenders.
North Jersey donates organic seeds to Zimbabwe. In related news, they also sending coals to Newcastle.
Online bibliography of food history. There goes the morning.
All hail the eucalyptuzzzzz genome.
The unintended consequences of WW2: oregano.
Follow the construction of the Crops for the Future Centre HQ. Over 10 episodes, mind, so gird your loins.
Breaking down crop rotation.
Malaria drugs through the ages. Make mine a G&T.
Yes, how is quinoa doing in Colorado?
New pineapples for the Pacific. They’ll probably end up canned.
Good news: Clumber Park has a Rhubarb Weekend. Bad news: we missed it. Ditto the Goa Mango Festival.
Mapping every monkey puzzle tree in Britain. Well, someone has to.
Transgenic chestnuts taking over New York State. You can bet someone’s going to map them.
The US potato renaissance we all knew was happening finally hits the headlines.
The latest on coffee improvement, including news from the CATIE collections.
Tulipmania: The video.
The father of hybrid corn.
Would he have approved of saving seeds? I suspect yes.
Chinese agriculture adds a few (thousand) years.
Europe has agroforestry too, and lots of it.
Think I missed something? Check if Jeremy caught it in his Tasty Morsels.

March 14, 2015March 15, 2015

Nibbles: Old pretzel, Wine podcast, Nordic podcast, Tea history, Pacific pests app, Eating bugs, Chicken history, African superfoods, Gender, Access to seeds, Sorghum beer, Making mead, Cumin, Bolivian school meals, MLN, Hidden hunger conference, CIP & IK, Potato Park, CIP’s Sawyer, Saving wheat, Resettlement, Sustainable cacao, Deforestation map, Language map

Again, sorry for slow blogging last week. Work, you know. Here we play catch-up.

While we were away, we reached 6000 Twitter followers! Thanks, everyone!
And Germans found a 250-year-old pretzel. Wait, you can get those at Kamps every day though. (Bonn inside joke.)
Oh, and Jeremy talked to a wine expert about how to become a wine expert.
But he has competition from the Nordic Food Lab now. What are you waiting for, subscribe to both!
Since we’re on podcasts, Laszlo Montgomery’s monumental ten-part blockbuster on the history of tea in China recently came to a close.
Talking of iTunes, ver. 2 of the Pacific Pest and Pathogens app is out.
Don’t want to get into the whole eating insects thing? Feed them to your chickens instead.
There’s even an infographic about that now.
But what will it do to the poor old chicken?
Cooking up some African superfoods. No insects (or chickens) were harmed in the making of this article.
Yeah but who will be doing the cooking?
And where to get the seeds? Maybe African Seed Access Index will help, though I somehow doubt it. At least for baobab.
Oh well, there’s always beer I guess. (Though even that you can’t take for granted these days.)
Or mead, at a pinch.
I bet the Sumerians put a pinch of cumin in their beer. And mead.
What about Latin America superfoods, though? Bolivians put them in their school meals, that’s what.
Maize was a Latin American superfood once. Having trouble in Africa now, though.
Wait, what, there was a 2nd International Congress on Hidden Hunger at the University of Hohenheim last week? And all I got was this t-shirt? Any superfoods on the menu there, I wonder?
CIP on how it deals with traditional knowledge.
For example at the Potato Park. Where I’ll be next week, incidentally. Stay tuned… But again, I rather fear that blogging will be on the light side next week.
CIP has come a long way since its first DG, Dr Richard L. Sawyer, who sadly just passed away.
Modelling the effects of climate change on wheat. Again. Can never have enough data. Anyway, wild relatives the answer?
Mongolian nomads settle down. And not in a good way.
There’s more to sustainable cacao than productivity. Fortunately, some people are on that. Meanwhile, at the other end of the poverty spectrum…
Don’t think I’ve ever seen a nerdy interactive map like Global Forest Watch go mainstream. Hope for us all. Mash it up with this next?

February 25, 2015February 25, 2015

Nibbles: Citrus greening, Deforestation, OFSP, Sugarbeet breeding, Poverty & conservation, Indian tribals, Eat This Podcast, Musalit, Solomon Island bananas, Potato somaclonal variation, Genebank data management, WorldVeg DG search

Getting to grips with citrus greening.
A review of the effect of oil palm, soybean, and jatropha production on biodiversity and ecosystem functions in tropical forests is in the offing. Here’s what will be done.
Sweet potatoes are good for the health of children. If you can get them to eat the things.
The history of monogerm sugar beet.
There’s no best way to link poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation. The Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum came up with a few ways, I’m sure.
Vegetarian tribe in India is certainly doing that conservation, but the poverty alleviation?
Jeremy takes a stroll around the allotment.
Musalit is back in the game. And speaking of which, who would not have wanted to be at the Makira Banana Festival?
Squeezing the most out of Russet Burbank. Oh, look at some new landraces, already!
Portugal becomes second genebank to adopt GRIN-Global.
AVRDC is looking for its next leader. Must know his/her onions.