Tourism – Page 145 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

February 4, 2008

Talking Plants

NPR’s Talking Plants blogger is in the Amazon.

November 22, 2007

Pioneer agriculture

Photos of Frontier Culture Museum, including agrobiodiversity.

November 19, 2007November 19, 2007

Many trees grow in Brooklyn

Crop wild relatives etc. in Prospect Park. Betty Smith unavailable for comment.

November 16, 2007March 31, 2008

Mongolian megafish

Mongolians protect giant trout by not eating it. More for everybody else, I guess.

November 13, 2007

Dryland, Livestock/Wildlife Environment Interface Project

Fatter livestock, more wild animals, honey. The elusive win-win-win?

1. Ancient farmers didn’t have to wait for the genetic diversity that made domestication possible. They selected from variation already present in wild plants, including the ancestors of rice and maize. Domestication was as much about spotting (or happening upon) useful differences as creating new ones.
2. English colonists in America called Indigenous dogs “wolves,” revealing as much about colonial perceptions as about the animals themselves. This history of Indigenous dogs shows how unfamiliar animals were classified through peculiarly European ideas about wildness.
3. Austria is bringing forgotten apple varieties back to life. Saving old varieties in genebanks is one thing: getting people to grow, sell and eat them is another, but it can be done. Or at least tried.
4. Jordan’s olive-oil heritage centres on traditional varieties such as Nabali and ancient Rumi trees, but most production is consumed locally, leaving exports limited and making provenance, cultivar and harvest date important indicators for buyers. Compare and contrast with Austrian apples.
5. Small island developing states have distinctive food cultures and ingredients, but face particular challenges in building sustainable and resilient food systems. FAO’s A Taste of SIDS explores the connections between island food, biodiversity and culinary heritage. Nice to see diversity within crops considered, though a few local variety names would have been nice.
Published on October 21, 2026