- Banana boffins at each others’ throats over alleged new species. Great spectator sport.
- What does a Musa voucher specimen look like, I wonder.
- Fancy shmanzy Bangkok restaurant links up with heirloom seedbank.
- Aroid network working really hard.
- Marker-assisted selection: a biotechnology we can all get behind. Can’t we?
- Conservation in Sierra Leone. No agrobiodiversity, natch.
Kermit sings the malnutrition blues
When you start really looking out for something, you quickly get to wondering how you could possibly have missed it all before. Case in point: maps of the USA which hint at “a complex association where interactions between a variety of factors could produce reinforcing effects.” That’s in the words of an Annals of Botany Google+ pointer to a recent post of ours here which included maps of obesity and food insecurity and mused vaguely about the coolness of mashups.
After that, of course I started seeing such maps everywhere. Of renewable resources, including biomass. Of landuse. Of poverty. Of, errr, the names of soft drinks.
Some regions jump up at you during the even briefest of looks at the maps of poverty, obesity and food insecurity. Like the Mississippi Valley, for instance. So it is at least somewhat reassuring that other people have noticed that too, and are doing something about it. Even doing multiple things about it, in fact. USDA probably didn’t need fancy maps to identify this particular nexus of deprivation, but maybe there are others that are not so obvious, and which an in-depth perusal of these maps will bring to light. Along with, hopefully, some possible solutions. Even if they are only farmers markets.
But to end on a lighter note, this region is not just known for poverty and malnutrition. The blues came from there, of course, but also, ahem, Kermit the Frog. In fact, there’s a connection between our green friend and agriculture. I am reliably informed that Jim Henson’s father was superintendent of the USDA-ARS research station in Stoneville, MS and worked closely with researchers there. Perhaps Kermit should be asked to spread the nutrition and exercise message around his old hopping grounds? I can’t think of a more suitable role model.
Nibbles: Educashun, Landscapes, Botany, AnGR, Tourism, Ham museum, Native American seeds, Ancient Egyptian grain storage, Ancient beer
- Want to teach about agrobiodiversity? Help is at hand.
- Want to learn about agrobiodiversity? Stay here.
- Want to know what’s going on in biodiversity conservation at Cambridge? Here’s how. Tell us if agriculture gets a look-in. If it doesn’t, come back here. But I bet there’ll be something about landscapes.
- What is a landscape? “The answer … differs tremendously depending on the respondent,” it says here. Wow, those Cambridge boffins will be so shocked.
- Want to know about the plants in that landscape whose definition is so much in the hands of respondents? Most were discovered by just a few botanical superstars. But how many women?
- And if that landscape is Turkish and there are (is?) livestock in it, this is what you’ll see.
- Want to tour the world’s top evolution sites? Here’s the first stop. Now, how about crop evolution (and domestication, natch) sites. Like some livestock- and crop-wild-relative-discovered-by-a-botanical-superstar-filled Turkish landscape, perhaps.
- Or what about sites connected with food production and marketing more generally, for that matter. No, that list would be too long. Interesting, but too long. Would need to prioritize ruthlessly.
- One thing for certain, though, it should include a couple of community genebanks.
- Where it is not inconceivable that seeds would be protected following age-old practices. Which may or may not be taught in fancy courses.
- Oh, and beer.
Agricultural calendar in northern Thailand
Thanks to Amanda for sending us this photo of one of the exhibits at the Opium Museum at Chiang Saen, Thailand, which is in the middle of the Golden Triangle. A nice way of displaying variation in local knowledge about agricultural practices, in this case the cropping calendar. It was not accompanied, alas, by a similar display of differences in crop or variety menus, alas. But one can imagine how that too could be made rather attractive.
Nibbles: Microbial diversity, Blog, Yams, Benefits of diversity, Ancient ploughing, Oman’s genebank, Lodoicea, Wheat senescence, Maize landrace marketing, Setaria flowering, Prisoner yams, Eating weed
- Microbiologist makes Guardians of Microbial Diversity award. Agromicrobes awaited.
- Fabulous giant new superinteresting megablog scheduled to launch today.
NoRSS.Yet? - Who likes which yams (by which they mean Dioscorea) in Madagascar? Kew will have answers.
- Genetic diversity invades the zeitgeist, or something.
- Or would you prefer something a little more down to earth?
- Oldest ploughed fields in Czech lands.
- Crazy mixed up report on this weeks new genebank, in
OmanQatar. “Up to 10,000 genes”? Be still my beating heart. - Ich bin ein coco-de-mer-nut.
- Heat speeds up wheat aging. I know how it feels.
- A “Starbucks Of Tortillas”? Sounds worse than it is.
- Welcome news of fundamental work on a “minor” millet.
- IITA goes to jail.
- Genetically modifying cannabis to make it safe to eat. Such a bad idea. On so many levels.