- Lingonberries power a trip from moose to mousse, and mush.
- FAO has a draft of updated genebank standards!
- Climate change person visits ICRISAT genebank, is impressed.
- Access to improved seed lauded.
- Yo! Price spike watchers! The Chinese drought thing is complex. Pay yer money. Take yer choice.
- Our friends at DAPA highlight their friends in Cuba: “peasant farmers have been able to boost food production via environmentally friendly methods”.
- Protecting native bee populations in Mexico.
Bats going bananas
Many of our most important foods come from bat-dependent plants. These include bananas, plantain, breadfruit, peaches, mangos, dates, figs, cashews and many more.
Bananas? Bananas? Yes, bananas. Well, kinda.
Nibbles: Cancun, Wine, Zambia, Bees
- Just in time. Agriculture and Rural Development Day 2010 now has RSS.
- “It wasn’t debilitated in any way.” World’s oldest beer and wine drunk.
- Zambian farmers buy seeds, fertilisers and herbicides by mobile phone. What could possibly go wrong?
- Red bees! A little too much biodiversity to blame? h/t Tasting Cultures
Nibbles: Buckwheat, Korea, Zimbabwean beer, Jeopardy
- Forest biodiversity boosts buckwheat harvest.
- Urban agriculture in Korea. Could it be prettier?
- Richer Zimbabwean drinkers abandon sorghum beer. Because it tastes poor, or because it feels poor?
- Biodiversity on TV. Read this, watch the video, and weep.
MEPs to save bees
Bee pollination accounts for 76 per cent of food production and 84 per cent of plant species.
OK, I know it is Friday and I am tired, but what on earth does that sentence mean? Quite apart from the spurious accuracy of 76 1 and 84. I’m glad to know that MEPs back plans to combat decreasing bee numbers, as reported by The Parliament, and that “the European parliament’s agriculture and rural development committee voted through a resolution on the issue on Thursday”. Alas, the report tells me nothing about the resolution and how it will actually help bees and beekeepers, nor where I can find out more.