- 10MB worth of proceedings of the Barley Genetics Symposium from ICARDA.
- So, what will this CCAFS do anyway?
- Russia offers VIR to the world. Again.
- Adonis, Sappho and lettuce, all in one post.
- Modern science needs traditional knowledge. And a fish needs a bicycle.
- Global Crop Diversity Trust and Latin American genebanks team up to rescue another bunch of crops: coffee, tomatoes, chillies, beans, squash etc.
- The world’s smallest and rarest wild suid is cute enough, not as cute as pocket pigs.
Nibbles: Pigeonpea, Agrobiodiversity book, Agroforestry
- USC promotes pigeonpeas. And why not.
- “Agrobiodiversity Management for Food Security: A Critical Review” by J M Lenné and D Wood hits newsstands.
- How ICRAF intends to stop agroforestry being marginalized in the new CGIAR. Their words (more or less), not mine.
Nibbles: Cardamom, FIGS, Descriptors, Haiti
- Cardamom scrutinised.
- A Lifeboat to the Gene Pool. Our friend Dr Dag “provides some of the first experimental evidence to support the FIGS concept”. With slides.
- Descriptor lists are important, says Bioversity today. No joke.
- An investigation, quite possibly partisan, but that’s the point, into emergency seed aid to Haiti after the earthquake.
How much spending goes on food?
There’s an interactive map at Civil Eats, which is great as far as it goes. But does it go far enough? Almost all of Africa is a vast gray expanse of “no data”. Where’s the companion map that shows what percent of a person’s diet they grow themselves?
There’s also an interesting statement in the comments: “Life expectancy is higher in some nations that spend above 10% on foods.” Mash-up artists, Gapminder mavens, what are you waiting for?
Nibbles: Gardening, Seed Swap, Mapping, Animal Genebank, Rice, Seed Treay, Nanocellulose, Camels, Bread, food Security
- Gardening is good for you. It’s official. And they didn’t even measure nutrition.
- European seed swap in Brussels.
- More fun for mappers; Training Kit on Participatory Spatial Information Management and Communication. h/t CAPRi
- Australian animal genebank under threat.
- Filipinos ♥ IRRI.
- Big write up of Seed Treaty‘s recent Governing Body meeting in Bali.
- Wired magazine goes nuts for bananas and other fruits as sources of better plastics.
- Camelicious! The worlds first large-scale camel dairy farm.
- Food strikes in ancient Egypt. They’ve been revolting for more than 3000 years.
- Nice round-up of how indigenous communities in Colombia are protecting their food security.