The National Agricultural Library in the US has a Special Collection consisting of watercolours of different fruit varieties. Stunning.
Nibbles: Allium, Desertification and livestock, Striga, Emmer, Hawaii, Almond, Seeds at FAO, Cassava in central Africa, Seed sculpture, Biofortification, Millets, Lunatrick pea
- Botany Photo of the Day is an onion wild relative! Pretty.
- More on that livestock-can-help-reduce-desertification thing, this time from Scientific American.
- Breeding Striga-resistant sorghum. Whatever it takes to protect local beer, boffin-dudes!
- Emmer wheat reviewed to bits.
- No passport data for your barley? Fear not.
- Rachel Laudan ably defends Hawaiian food.
- Origins of almond traced to Iran. Not for the first time.
- Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture: A Commons Perspective. Presentation from our friends at FAO.
- Presentation on the untapped potential of cassava in the Great Lakes region of Africa. One of many from CIAT lately. Check out their stuff on beans too.
- The Seed Cathedral of Shanghai. Thanks to those public awareness wizards at Kew.
- Big shindig on biofortification. Be there, or be malnourished.
- Times of India bangs the drum for nutritious millets.
- Yet more loveliness from serious amateur pea breeder Rebsie Fairholm.
Two fried oyster po-boys to go!
Our attempt to gauge the effect of the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on agrobiodiversity was pretty pathetic, really. Not so, predictably, Gary Nabhan’s. In an article in Grist, he announces that “the Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) alliance will release a comprehensive checklist of over 240 place-based foods of the Gulf Coast that are now at risk — 138 of them directly affected by the oil spill.” ((Coincidentally (or not?), there’s a new online map out on North America’s marine ecosystems.)) As a companion piece in Grist points out, accompanied by luscious photos, the best way to help these threatened foodways is to keep eating Gulf seafood:
…perceptions to the contrary, not all Gulf fisheries are closed. Plenty of shrimp, shellfish, and other seafood that have been greenlighted by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program are still making it to market. The problem is that consumers are afraid to buy them. Well, fear not. Safeguards are in place — including federal oil-sniffers!
Looking for Niu Afa
You have been following the Adventures of Roland in Samoa, have you not?
Society for Economic Botany discussing agrobiodiversity as we speak
Coming across this write-up of a year-old symposium on Mexico’s wild and cultivated greens reminded me that this year’s congress of the Society for Economic Botany is going on right now in Xalapa, Mexico. The theme is “Agrobiodiversity, lessons for conservation and local development.” If you’re there (and we know you are) and would like to report on the meeting for us (and we know you do), just drop us a line.