- After yesterday’s thing on gum arabic, CIFOR’s blogger weighs in on frankincense and myrrh. Gums and resins renaissance, anyone?
- VoA on the ITPGRFA, with interview goodness.
- Soy sauce in bullet points.
- A Spanish food historian’s deconstruction of the Mediterranean diet deconstructed by Rachel Laudan.
- Fish in paddies: here comes the science.
- Côte d’Ivoire to revive cacao cultivation. By building a research centre?
- Pleasant, cultured and not so short foray into the history of the sugar industry in Kenya and Mauritius.
- You say sweet potato. I say yam.
- You say yam, so does Rhizowen, and yet … he’s talking about neither Ipomoea nor Manihot.
- Urban agriculture thriving in DR Congo.
Brainfood: Beans, Tree erosion, Climate space, Ecosystem services, Conservation, Pest management, Phenomics, Oca, Biodiversity research
- Seed Morphobiometry of Wild and Cultivated Taxa of Phaseolus L. (Fabaceae). Measurements confirm taxonomy; three big groups.
- Meta-Analysis of Susceptibility of Woody Plants to Loss of Genetic Diversity through Habitat Fragmentation. Pollination mechanism makes little difference.
- Running Out of Climate Space. Commentary on two paper in the same issue of Science; now, someone do the same for crops.
- The Future of Payments for Environmental Services. Any ag? Only in a negative way.
- Land, Food, and Biodiversity. Palm oil, pollution, pristine environments, population pressure.
- Avian Conservation Practices Strengthen Ecosystem Services in California Vineyards. Birds eat insects shock.
- Phenomics – technologies to relieve the phenotyping bottleneck. Just what we need for mo’ better characterization and evaluation.
- Diversification of the American bulb-bearing Oxalis (Oxalidaceae): Dispersal to North America and modification of the tristylous breeding system. Oca fans everywhere are agog.
- Global biodiversity research during 1900–2009: a bibliometric analysis. Somebody tell us; any ag?
Don’t forget the open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here.
Happy birthday, ITPGRFA!
It’s only the 10th anniversary of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture? Feels like a lifetime…
Nibbles: China, Anti-malarials, Mongolia
- China’s capitalists gobble up agriculture. If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em.
- Making better seed of Artemisia available. And conserving its diversity?
- Mongolian pastoralists embrace collective action.
Managing the Commons
Ostrom pointed to an authoritative study of 100 protected forests in 14 countries, which shows that the cooperation of local people is more important to preserving these commons than whether a national government, local officials or someone else actually oversees the forests. If the people who live there feel they benefit long-term from how the forests are managed, she notes, they make sure the rules are followed. “When local groups have the right to harvest non-timber resources, they are more likely to monitor and sanction those who break the rules.”