Tourism

Nibbles: Rice farming, Funny teas, Funny fruits, Christmas fare, Online course, Seasonal genomes, Malaysia shares, School shares

The most beautiful rice farm in the world. No, wait.
Jasmine tea gets protection. But does it need it? Let’s ask the South Africans what they’re doing with their tea.
Today’s funny fruit picture. Think it’s one of these Cuban mutants?
How many micronutrients in a Mexican Christmas dinner? And how many in a British one, featuring parsnips of course.
People’s University has online Appreciation Programme on Sustainable Management of Biodiversity starting January 2013.
First farmers were first carpenters.
And today’s genome story is very seasonally appropriate. Oh no, here’s another one!
Malaysia implements the ITPGRFA. Cool, but why is that even news?
School sends okra seeds to Haiti. But… No, I’m not playing the Grinch on this one, it’s too sweet.

Cassava gets a makeover in Brazil. And another, of a different kind, in East Africa.
Revolution turns into Terror. Where’s our Napoleon?
Designating Costa Rican cheese.
Conserving poverty?
No poverty for bean breeders in the US.
The uses of Oregon Grape. Which is of course not a grape.
Chaffey Style.
Coconut water is a major conservation issue for 2013. It says here.
Fewer farmers, more fires. In the Amazon. It says here.
Yeah, what is balsam anyway?
So the Next Big Thing in African ag development is agricultural growth corridors. What could possibly go wrong? Will they learn from wildlife corridors? Will they be using these four apparently key technologies? Or bolstering extension? And will it all mean a decrease in bush meat consumption?
Heritage foods book. Yummie.
Like potatoes in Peru, I guess. And various street foods in West Africa.
Conference on native seed use in the US. Probably even some crop wild relatives in there.

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.

Oxford Review of Economic Policy has special volume on biodiversity economics. Not much ag, though, settle down.
ICARDA announces on Twitter the existence of a new Facebook page which looks a bit like the old one.
It’s the fertilizer miles, stupid.
Great British Food Revival does heirloom carrots. Oh and beer.
Good news for a particular agricultural biodiversity subsector from Amsterdam and Colorado. The Dude unavailable for comment. For obvious reasons.
If you’re from Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda and are doing research on Neglected and Underutilized Species you’ll be interested in this call or research proposals from ISF.
Bioversity deconstructs that paper on the spatial analysis of Theobroma diversity. I still don’t quite get why they didn’t do the gap analysis.
Farming from the air. And more along the same lines. Or polygons, I suppose I should say. Can you estimate diversity from the air? I bet you can.
Sustainable intensification in (sort of) action.
Damn rice farmers not playing ball.
Oxford botany geeks visit Japan, identify wood of bench in noodle bar.
13th meeting ECPGR Steering Committee. All the documents you’ll need. And then some.
Soybean as a vegetable. Possibly an acquired taste.
How to keep young people on the farm? “Perhaps the first point to recognise is that the evidence base on which to build policy and programmes is frighteningly thin.”