- Community management of pests is less efficient (in Spanish). Something to do with farmers not sharing information quickly enough.
- Birds help to control vineyard pests.
- Small-scale farmers can feed the world, as any fule kno.
- Smithsonian celebrates urban ag. Meh.
- Organic food festival Dec 16th, Ahmedabad, India. “The food items should necessarily involve use of indigenous varieties”.
- USDA stops counting sheep. And goats, catfish and hops, among others.
Nibbles: Tarwi, Pests, Planthoppers, Subsidies, Cereal breeding, EU legislation,
- A nice long video on Lupinus mutabilis: TARWI – Semillas del Futuro Vol.1. It has always, in my experience, been “del futuro”.
- BBC asks CABI chief scientist to pick his top 10 plant pests. What, no taro leaf blight?
- Nor planthoppers of Iran?
- Divert just four years’ worth of EU agricultural subsidies to pay off pretty much all of Greece’s public debt, and we could stave off a second global financial crisis while helping some of the world’s poorest people all at the same time. Not gonna happen.
- Videos from 15th EWAC-Eucarpia Cereals Section Conference. Luigi not featured. Yet.
- EU may decide on new seed laws tomorrow. Or not. Patrick unpacks it a bit.
Nibbles: Parthenium, Squashes
- Parthenium hysterophorus is smothering Kenya. Somebody do something. And what’s that specific mean? Late-bearing?
- Cucurbits and American history.
- NordGen etc workshop on Socio-economic and Cultural Values of Farm Animal Breeds. And all the presentations are linked. But where are the stories?
Nibbles: Palestinian genebank, PNG seeds, Local chickens, Landscapes
- New seed bank on West Bank. This one seems to be a genebank. I think.
- Seeds and needs in PNG.
- ILRI PowerPoint on Ethiopian chickens. But 46 slides?
- Everybody’s talking about the new Landscapes for People, Food and Nature thing, so I guess we should too.
Nibbles: Cuba gardens, Dual purpose pumpkins, GRIN-Global, Wheat belly, Agroforestry, Zambian malnutrition, Libyan agriculture, Certification
- Visit Cuba with boffins of the University of Washington Botanic Gardens. Well that sounds like fun.
- You liked naked oats? Get a load of naked pumpkins. Comments disabled for Manitoba farmers.
- Psst, wanna genebank data management system? Only slightly used…
- Something else you can blame your beer belly on: wheat.
- Have your forest and eat it too.
- Solving malnutrition in Zambia. I wanna know more about those “improved seed varieties.”
- And about these too for that matter: “…ICARDA is urgently sending to Libya seeds of wheat, barley, legume and forage crops for the 2011-2012 cropping season…” Incidentally, any news about the Agricultural Research Centre in Tripoli?
- Forest certification helps nearby Heritage Sites.