- Beautiful Images of Strange Fruits. Botanical not culinary, mostly
- Hawaiians paid to plant natives.
- Dismal science tells boffins which cattle breeds to save. Yeah, because we all so trust economists these days, right?
- “Cynara 2009, the 7th International Symposium on Artichoke, Cardoon And Their Wild Relatives, will be held in Saint Pol de Léon, Brittany, France, the ‘home town’ of the famous artichoke variety Camus de Bretagne.” Via.
- Pinoy allotment manual.
Sunken billions
A new World Bank publication puts dollar numbers on the world’s approach to fishing:
Economic losses in marine fisheries resulting from poor management, inefficiencies, and overfishing add up to US$50 billion per year.
The book argues that:
strengthened fishing rights can provide fishers and fishing communities with incentives to operate in an economically efficient and socially responsible manner.
I presume it would help conserve marine biodiversity as well.
Also just out is the State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2008, from FAO. Part 1 is a very informative and data rich overview. FAO estimates that 80% of fisheries are fully or over-exploited, and that 47% of fish consumed is from aquaculture (which must become more sustainable, says the WWF).
Part 2 has a chapter on Marine genetic resources in areas beyond national jurisdiction as related to marine biodiversity and the sustainable use of living marine resources. It is about bio-prospecting in international waters, and benefit sharing. They are looking at the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture to help develop policy in this area.
Nibbles: Easter Island, Quail, Kimchi, Assisted migration, Solar, Training materials, Ancient wine squared, Economics, Wild food
- People of Rapa Nui innovated as they collapsed.
- “Extinct” Bird Seen, Eaten. Sorry, National Geographic, but I can’t better that headline. Worthy of Fark.
- Kimchi madness.
- Coming to a protected are near you: moving species to save them from climate change. CWR, anyone?
- Shrinking the C footprint of traditional peanut processing. Via.
- 15 Evolutionary Gems: alas, nothing from crops, livestock. Surely domestication could have made it in there.
- “Bulgarian wine cellars have already announced that they will plant vines with the mysterious and newly recovered variety of grapes near the Orpheus tomb.”
- And more ancient wine, this time from Malta.
- Bioversity International wises up on dismal science, launches new economics webpages.
- Wild forest foods big hit at FAO booth at Lao and International Food Festival last weekend in Vientiane.
Mine’s a decaff
We’re always on the look-out for examples of the financial value of germplasm collections which don’t involve some obscure and faraway disease, however nasty. So it was really nice to come across a great story about the search for naturally low-caffeine coffee, and in the Wall Street Journal no less. Coincidentally, there was also a blog post yesterday about the wild coffees of Madagascar. ((Yes, dear reader, we nibbled both these things yesterday, but I thought, on reflection, that they were worth a bit more than that.)) Some of the many species found on that island are known to have low caffeine levels, but “[a]ttempts to transfer the caffeine-free property from wild coffee species of Madagascar, which produce an inferior beverage, to C. arabica have failed owing to a strong genetic barrier.”
LATER: I wonder if the recent Korean “land-grab” in Madagascar will have an effect on wild coffees and other interesting endemics.
Discourse for dinner
This is not just any blog. It is a local blog. Or at least you could pretend I live in your street, and shop in your mall. Does that makes this post more palatable?
It seems to work that way with food. At least where I come from, a dish that is “from our own garden” is supposed to be of high quality, not a sign of poverty. Chad Nilep, in an elegant post on the Linguistic Anthropology blog reflects on the Japanese preference for “naichimai”, Japanese grown rice ((Ed.: Coincidentally, there’s more on Japanese crops over at Vaviblog today.)):
Thus (I thought to myself this afternoon), while consuming naichimai, Japanese consumers enjoy not only the material element of the rice itself, but also the melancholic discourses of national nostalgia, imagined though they may be.
But you could also imagine that I live in a far and exotic place where we produce and eat food that you can only envy. Europe is full of that tradition: ham and cheese from Parma, bubbly wine from Champagne. You name it.
Ask for the main discourse the next time you are eating out.