- Fir trees holding their value. It must be Christmas.
- Mistletoe is good for trees. Is it still Christmas?
- An indicator framework for assessing agroecosystem resilience. Santa is being good to us this year.
- “Banana-shaped” takes on a whole new meaning.
- How to do crowdsourcing, right? Right!
- How to write good about agricultural research.
- Testing other kinds of grain and other kinds of bread.
- The East African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation comes in for some stick over draft policy on plant variety protection laws. This deserves way more than a Nibble. Perhaps some well-informed policy wonks will chime in.
- Blame 18th century Japanese rice traders for the futures markets.
- Who do I blame for Cassavabase?
Help researchers get their priorities right
Would you like to influence the future direction of research on roots, tubers and bananas? Course you would. And now you can, thanks to a priority setting exercise being carried out by the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas. The ProMusa website has the full details: researchers
are … looking beyond yields to estimate the impact on poverty, health, gender equity and environmental sustainability.
It starts with mapping to locate the places where “research has the greatest potential to alleviate poverty and increase food security”.
The top constraints in these target areas will then be matched with research options. The impact, over the next 20 years, of these research options will be assessed using different methods, depending on the indicator, and the findings will be used to guide research investment decisions.
So now you know, and you have no excuse.
If your interest is bananas and plantains, then head on over to the ProMusa page that will guide you to a survey in English, French and Spanish. For other crops – but inexplicably not bananas nor the “minor” roots and tubers – the RTB website is the place to go.
Anyone for taro?
Nibbles: Cheese, Gluten, Food security, Agrobiodiverse fields
- BBC makes a meal of very old cheese.
- Botanist in the kitchen dishes the whole history of gluten.
- Food boffin reflects on UK Women’s Institute test recipes for Global Food Security.
- Dewy-eyed farmer says you can’t eat agrobiodiversity, but so what.
Nibbles: Frankincense, Slow Food, Food Justice, Ancient pips, Photosynthesis, Food security
- Boswellia back in the news. Must be Christmas.
- Yesterday was Terra Madre Day; there’s something satisfyingly meta about being a day late with that news.
- The Germans want justice for food from far away.
- Bioversity larges up its Heuristic Framework to boost the conservation and use of crop biodiversity.
- Archaeologist finds ancient Roman grape seeds, prepares to rewrite history of Chianti.
- Oh Boy! Another $25 million to remake photosynthesis. We’re still waiting …
- More please! Another giant talkfest to end hunger. Don’t miss the comments.
Brainfood: Core collections, Romanian pigs, Commons, Valuation, Biofortification, Yam characterization, Pompeii diet, Rice grain genetics
- Maximizing genetic differentiation in core collections by PCA-based clustering of molecular marker data. It works. In simulations, to be fair.
- Study of rare traditional pork breeds concerning the aspect of biodiversity conservation. Mangalitsa is what you want, apparently.
- Open Variety Rights: Rethinking the Commodification of Plants. A “protected commons”? Sounds a bit like the ITPGRFA to me.
- Natural and cultural heritage in mountain landscapes: towards an integrated valuation. Yeah, but does your cultural heritage include things like agricultural biodiversity?
- Fortifying plants with the essential amino acids lysine and methionine to improve nutritional quality. Conventional breeding hasn’t worked. But has it been for want of trying? Just askin’.
- Genetic and phenotypic diversity in a germplasm working collection of cultivated tropical yams (Dioscorea spp.). Relationships among species, synonyms, duplicates, yada yada.
- Roman food refuse: urban archaeobotany in Pompeii, Regio VI, Insula 1. Romans ate a Mediterranean diet. Still no cure for cancer.
- Genetic bases of rice grain shape: so many genes, so little known. Why bother? Just askin’.