Threats

Nibbles: Climate change & yields, Eucalyptus genome, Pacific breeders, Iranian barley breeders, Food Policy Report 2013, Titan, Gluten allergy, FGR podcast, Rice culture, NERICA and gender, WCC2014, CWR article, Malnutrition myths, Halophytes

Yeah, on this climate change thing? We’re doomed.
Oh crap, there’s another genome: eucalyptus this time. Here’s the paper, you geeks. Great news for koalas, whose genome we still await, incidentally. Yeah, where are we with that?
SPC trains some breeders with Treaty money.
I wonder if they were told about Evolutionary Plant Breeding.
IFPRI has its new food policy report out. More on this later from us, I suspect.
The Bonn Titan Arum blooms! Well, I’m calling it a crop wild relative.
That gluten allergy? Don’t blame modern wheat varieties.
Podcast on the importance of genetic resources to sustainable forests.
Why rice? The Filipino view.
And the African view. NERICA’s good for women. And bad.
Bioversity blogs about World Cocoa Conference 2014, gets dates wrong. It’s on now.
Crop wild relatives in The Scientist. But I’m biased…
Busting malnutrition myths. Because they’re there.
There’s probably a few myths out there about halophytes too.

Can’t move for genomes today.

But there is other stuff too.

How weeds could feed billions. Not by eating them but by breeding from them. Are crop wild relatives really all weeds?
TED talks on biodiversity. I suppose we should be grateful for 1.5 out of 30.
A New York baker has been exploring tumminia wheat. Without telling us.
Adaptation to climate change hardly worth it, according to econ 101.
So you want to make your own popped sorghum? All you need is a microwave and a paper bag.
ProMusa reports on an easier and better way for banana farmers to manage Xanthomonas wilt.

Neolithic farmers spread into Europe by sea.
And it looks like the ones who got to Crete eventually gave rise to the Minoans.
And ate food not unlike what Cretans ate up to a hundred years ago.
Well of course the olive is important to all that.
Ten thousand years later, we find that organic is an impossible dream.
And Fairtrade may or may not work.
But value chains will make you free. Although that’s easier said than done.
And you have to be climate-smart to boot. Really, who’d be a farmer, in the Neolithic or now.

“Productivism” skewered one last time. Until the next time.
The Malagasy Bean Renaissance. No, really.
The science of beer foam. Now there’s no excuse.
Cocktails can be biodiverse too. You bet they can.
CIAT’s new strategy makes a splash. Genebank front and centre.
New ICIPE director tells all. She used to work at CIAT, did you know?
First edition of The State of the World’s Forest Genetic Resources is out. Now to do something about it.
Italy’s traditional rices preserved. Yes, Italy’s, you heard me.
Agriculture was invented in the current interglacial. Why then, and not in the Eemian?
Quinoa macronutrients exzzzzzzzamined.
Your what-to-do-now guide to the medieval farm. Progress? Not what it’s cracked up to be.
People of the Toluca valley! Expect researchers looking for wild potato genes resistant to late blight.

Conditions at the dawn of Fertile Crescent agriculture were wetter and more, well, fertile. Been downhill ever since.
Digitizing land data may not be good for women.
European agricultural policies bad for diets.
Africa will continue to face droughts. Looks like nobody can catch a break today.
Ah, ok, here’s something good. Italian rice a hit in China. Gotta get your victories where you can.
And some feel-good stuff on cowpea research in Mozambique.
And to conclude our return from the slough of despond, some encouraging news about forest restoration.