- 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: School genetics, Sigrid Heuer, Fungal sex, Rubber, Wine, James Scott, Sustainable diets meet, Food exhibit, EU and climate change
- Much may be made of a wheat gene-jockey, if he be caught young.
- Or rice gene-jockeys, for that matter.
- Lots of naughtiness going on in blue cheese.
- Hope those reprobate fungi are using sustainable Amazonian rubbers.
- Some wine with that naughty cheese?
- Learning Burmese, researching the deep history of crops. Meah.
- Start planning for the next sustainable diets symposium. Symposium is quite apt, isn’t it.
- Feast your eyes on Feast Your Eyes.
- European agriculture is totally prepared for this climate change whatsit.
FSA takes over ICARDA buildings
Free Syrian Army fighters have, in their words on the video below, “liberated” ICARDA. Our thoughts are with the international staff, still working from different locations around the region (most of the genebank personnel are in Tunisia), and especially the local staff, trying to survive in and around Aleppo.
@AgroBioDiverse Luigi, don't get shocked. ICARDA facility has been looted. Cars are with FSA now. Watch this http://t.co/qB85xJhw #ICARDA
— Dr. Joshka Wessels (@joshkawessels) December 1, 2012
Nibbles: Old rice, New quinoa, Fishy stuff, Cropland landscapes, Forest landscapes, Old seed, Superdomestication, Intensification
- Youth compiles list of rare and extinct rice varieties of Assam. Maybe he should look at weedy rice too?
- Meanwhile, American farmers are learning to grow quinoa, probably including some rare varieties.
- The smelliest fish in the world. No traceability needed for that one, I guess.
- Cropland getting mapped. Presumably including the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). Help needed by both, by the way.
- Follow the forest discussions at COP18. High on the agenda: what is a landscape? It’s what you study when you’re being holistic, no? Anyway, there’s got to be a connection to the previous links.
- Boffins find a genetic marker for old seed. Will need to Brainfood this one.
- Pat Heslop-Harrison breaks down superdomestication for you.
- SRI gets a scaling up. What could possibly go wrong?