- Silver lining: IRRI funding up 20% so far this year.
- Foodie discovers diversity: Amaranth, Himalayan Red Rice, Teff, Farro, Triticale, Sorghum … How have I never tried any of these?
- Texans save wildflower seeds.
- “We are not trying to use vegetables as a substitute for food, but rather as an addition to the food basket, to help farmers become better nourished and grow out of poverty.”
- Jurassic Park video.
- Olive varieties differ in response to irrigation with saline water.
- BBC’s One Planet podcast on urban agriculture in Kampala.
- St Kitts kids learn about sweet potato diversity. From the Taiwanese.
- Even in the struggle between shepherd and wolf the issue is uncertain.
- Agricultural biodiversity rituals corner: swan upping. Ah, swan terrine.
- A roundup of Britain’s nature writers. A sort of nature writer upping, I guess.
- Remember that catfish post a couple days back? This completes the trifecta.
- “…the crop from ground, washed, packed and stacked in supermarket-ready trays in just six minutes.”
Nibbles: Mongolia, Fruit & veg, Lima bean, Biofuels, Peyote, Permaculture, Extension
- Isgelen tarag. You heard me.
- Eat up all your vegetables, Timmy.
- Breeding a better Lima bean.
- Kenya will regret its failure to protect the environment. Wangari Maathai against (specific) biofuels.
- Lophophora williamsii showing classic signs of overexploitation.
- “I have been trying to be very friendly to soil worms…They are our friends.”
- Using radio soap operas in extension.
No veggies. But why not?
Blogging comes more or less full circle with Jessica’s letters from Niger. Jessica Bliss is a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger. She has even less internet access than the other front-line people we occasionally link to. But she writes letters home. Using pen and paper and postage stamps; imagine that! And her parents blog them. ((I love the disclaimer: The contents of this blog do not reflect the opinions of the US government or Peace Corps. Because of that it should be kind of fun to read.“)) Beats handing a tattered envelope around.
Anyway, in her latest, Jessica puts the food crisis in perspective; the perspective of “her” villagers. She says that “with the exception of onions and the occasional powdered tomato and okra that they put in sauces, people don’t eat many veggies. (This might change here: working on it!)”
Two questions:
- Why not? Is it because there really isn’t enough water? Or is it that there just isn’t a cultural tradition of growing and eating plants?
- What can she be working on? I hope we’ll find out soon enough.
Nibbles: Homegardens, Rice, Fish, Climate change, Value chains, Fuel costs, Urban drift
- Uganda: “Many youth are no longer idle. They grow vegetables and sell them.”
- Iran: “Rice is becoming a luxury for many of the poor, just like meat and chicken.”
- California: “In nearly every scenario we explored, biodiversity suffers...”
- Australia: “the Australian Fish Names Standard AS SSA 5300 which prescribes standard fish names approved for use in Australia.”
- Pretty much anywhere: “linking small-scale producers to modern markets.”
- Dept. of Silver Linings: “Fuel Costs May Force Some Kids To Walk.” Via.
- Tibet: “I’ve lived here long enough.” Via.
Nibbles: Bananas, Cassava, Coconuts, Potato, Training, Wild poultry, EU regulations, Saving seeds
- No rice? Eat bananas!
- “Whatever the cultivation and consumption of cassava mean to us as Jamaicans, it cannot be just a source of comic relief.”
- Climate change good for coconuts. Well that’s a relief.
- Spud slide show.
- Gubernator helps Chile with its genetic resources. Sarah Connor unavailable for comment.
- Galliformes conservation in SE Asia. No, nothing to do with the French.
- “…the white part of the leek must represent at least one-third of the total length or half the sheathed part.” Yeah, that makes sense.
- “You really see that it’s the poor and persecuted who have been the seed savers.”