Tourism

May 29, 2010May 29, 2010

Nibbles: Mayan archaeobeerology, Pesticidal plants, Livestock and livelihoods, Uganda national park

Cacao beer. What’s not to like?
CABI blog deconstructs pesticidal plants.
Worldwatch blog on how “livestock can improve food security and preserve and rebuild communities.”
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park tries to diversify.

May 28, 2010

Nibbles: Wild coffee in Uganda, Grasspea, Land Institute, Biopiracy, Frog endangered by tea

Conservation project fails to work. But lessons are learned.
The archaeology of grasspea. Mainly Aegean, as it turns out.
Artificial selection can help fill gaps left by other kind.
Nestlé accused of stealing roiboos.
Tea or frog?

May 27, 2010May 27, 2010

Nibbles: Nuts, Ug99, Mexican pollinator project, Maize in Africa, Cerrado fruit

Going nuts in Kyrgyzstan. Ok, sorry, that should read growing. And something similar from Brazil.
And the bad Ug99 news just keeps on coming. When is wheat gonna catch a break?
The Campesino a Campesino Pollinator Project. I just love that title.
Study says “drought tolerant maize will greatly benefit African farmers.” Still no cure for cancer.
Araticum, Buriti, Pequi, Cagaita, Gueroba, Babassu, Baru: Which one is the next kiwi?

May 26, 2010May 26, 2010

Nibbles: Tourism, Camel cheese, Sweet potato storage, Landraces and climate change, Eucalypts in Kenya

Food sovereignty tours. I probably shouldn’t, but I like this idea.
Why it is difficult to make cheese from camel milk.
Storing sweet potatoes the indigenous way.
We need traditional seeds to adapt to climate change. Yes, sure, but it ain’t so easy. Also need other tings, surely.
Eucalypts in Kenya: Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Ask my mother-in-law.

May 24, 2010May 24, 2010

Nairobi’s International Day of Biodiversity in pictures

Taz, who describes himself on his blog as a Kenyan science writer, was at the National Museums of Kenya on the occasion of the International Day for Biodiversity, and he kindly left a comment to that effect on our short post on that subject. His own description of the event includes some great photos. Any other reports, from Nairobi and elsewhere?

LATER: Susan MacMillan of ILRI also has some photos from the Nairobi celebrations on her Facebook page.

1. Grinding, fermenting, and detoxifying our way to bigger brains — an anthropologist makes the case that food processing, historically women’s work, did as much for human evolution as the mammoth-spearing got credit for.
2. Speaking of transforming raw ingredients into something civilization-defining: a Japanese temple has been quietly perfecting vegan cooking for 700 years, no marketing department required.
3. Meanwhile in the Philippines, Naturland, the international association for organic farming from Germany, is linking up with Global Seed Savers Philippines, to help farmers get their hands on indigenous crop diversity before it disappears.
4. If you want to see what “future-proofing seeds” looks like at scale, the National Soybean Germplasm Collection just turned 100: a century of squirreling away soybean diversity, just in case.
5. Kazakhstan wants in on the squirreling too: plans are moving forward for a new genebank to safeguard agricultural biodiversity across Islamic Organization for Food Security member states.
6. The University of Reading is also 100, and in celebration scientists there harvested beans from the university’s cacao collection (yes, it has a cacao collection) to make Britain’s first homegrown chocolate bar since 1932, a novelty act with a serious undertone: climate change is squeezing cocoa’s traditional growing belt.
7. And in Italy, the squeeze is already showing up on the balance sheet: Parmesan’s “Fort Knox” — $350 million of cheese squirreled away as loan collateral — is feeling the heat, with rising cooling costs and falling yields rattling wine and olive oil too.
Published on August 16, 2026