- Good COP, bad COP? Registration opens for Agriculture and Rural Development Day 2010, at COP16, the Climate Change COP.
- Maya in Haiti? Jamaica? Institute expands its reach.
- India considering making the right to food an actual right to food. But how?
- Science magazine shares the Pav-Love-sk.
- “From 28 August to 3 October, the Curried Sausage Field is open to visitors on Diedersdorfer Weg in Berlin. This is BfR’s second didactic plant labyrinth.” Don’t even ask.
- Bananas for juice. Power type juice.
- New book explores history, future of international agriculture. Anyone reading it?
- Hear Bioversity’s DG warn Pacific islanders of fast food health risks.
- “Without the yeast, beer would be nonalcoholic and noncarbonated.” Yeah, but then what would be the point? The Ecological Society of America considers beer — and issues a delightful apology.
- Video on saving Ankole cattle.
- Amphibians find it hard to move higher in response to climate change. And plants? Crops? Wild relatives? Has anyone done the modelling?
- The pristine Amazon. Not.
- Wild tomatoes and drought.
- The best plants for pollinators.
- When are different crops sown around the world? Gotta love meta-analyses.
- Apparently conservationists interested in the economics of it all must abandon the “straightjacket of the Walrasian core.” So now there’s no excuse.
Nibbles: Vavilov, GOSPs, Robot rice, Carrots, Crisis, Shade cacao, Churro sheep of the Navajo, Sorghum beer, Papal diet, chocolate, Carnival
- World Genepool at the N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry and Its Utilization in Agriculture. Anyone got a copy?
- Gloucester Old Spot pigs get protection. Not that they really need it.
- BASF takes hi-tech breeding to the next level: 40,000 individual rice plants on a robotic ride to the future.
- Rebsie does carrots.
- The perfect storm is one element of the triple crisis.
- Nitrogen-fixing shade trees really do feed young cacao trees.
- “Sheep is your backbone.”
- Bringing gluten-free sorghum beer to the huddled masses … of Colorado.
- Eat like a pope. (Not much diversity.)
- Cadbury heiress fancies starting a new chocolate company? Maybe she’ll go all varietal.
- Scientia pro Publica. Carnival time again.
That caterpillar fungus — in depth
Maybe you weren’t tempted by the Nibble of caterpillar mushroom we served up a week ago. Today the Guardian gives you another bite at the cherry, as it were.
[T]he value of Yartsa Gunbu has increased more than ninefold since 1997, creating what mycologist Daniel Winkler calls a “globally unique rural fungal economy” on the Tibetan Plateau.
It has everything, this story — poor people, over-exploitation, lack of diversity, government meddling — and the report includes some great photographs. Is anyone, though working to cultivate or domesticate the Summer Grass Winter Worm?
Oh, and here’s some science again. And our post from three years ago. 1
Nibbles: Grasscutters, Geographical indicators, GMO bananas, UK farming
- Neleshi Grasscutter and Farmers Association (NAGRAFA). Grasscutters are not members.
- The value of geographical indicators. So, where is that grasscutter from?
- Capsicum genes engineered into banana might protect against Xanthomonas wilt in the future, if safe. No need for management then, which works now.
- Interesting arguments for keeping Britain GM-free: profits and aesthetics of biodiverse agriculture.
Mangoes and lychees save girls’ lives
A heart-warming story from BBC News: in the village of Dharhara in India, parents plant 10 or more fruit trees when a baby girl is born. The trees mature slightly faster than the girls, and by the time a girl is nubile the profits from the sale of fruit is more than enough to pay the bride price commonly required by the groom’s family. Bihar has the highest death rate among families who cannot pay a bride price. But not in Dharhara.