Happy Birthday Oekologie. The 13th edition of this monthly blog carnival is up and running, with lots of posts that should tickle the fancy of anyone interested in agriculture and our food supply: worm compost, overfishing, links between food and culture. Oh, and us.
Apples unmoved
One of the bits of news we missed while we were resting and relaxing as hard as we were: the UK’s collection of apples and other fruits is staying at Brogdale. This may strike you as no-news news. It isn’t.
Long-standing readers will remember that the UK government put management of the site out to tender, and that two of the proposals required moving the entire collection to a new site. This seemed like a slightly daft idea, at least from our perspective. So it is good to relate that the management contract was awarded to Reading University, who will be leaving the collection where it is.
The Visitor Centre and sales areas are being expanded, and it could be that the collection is now poised to play a more important role in spreading the good news about all those fruit varieties that aren’t available in little plastic bags in the supermarket.
It has been a long and complex struggle, and it is not clear what the future of the Brogdale Horticultural Trust. We’ll try and keep informed.
Rice maps
I’ve linked on a couple of occasions to Robert Hijmans’ rice maps, as published in IRRI’s Rice Today magazine. Robert has now put these all together on a single webpage. Good idea.
FAO highlights giant swamp taro
A press release by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has highlighted a paper in the latest edition of the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, sponsored by FAO.  The study reveals the potential health benefits of giant swamp taro, an increasingly neglected crop in Micronesia, where there are serious nutrition problems, as traditional foods are being replaced by imported foods of lower nutritional content. The release points out thatÂ
… a group of researchers from the Federated States of Micronesia, Switzerland, Fiji, Australia, USA, and Palau have generated new data, and confirmed previous findings, showing that Micronesian giant swamp taro (Cyrtosperma merkusii) varieties are rich sources of nutrients. For the first time, the researchers present data on carotenoid and mineral content of many varieties of giant swamp taro, in addition to dietary characteristics of Micronesian citizens. According to lead researcher Lois Englberger, certain varieties contain high amounts of micronutrients, including beta-carotene and essential minerals such as zinc, iron, and calcium.
The full press release can be found here. ((Thanks to Lois Englberger for this information.))
Grapes of wrath, Italian style
You may recall a number of posts over the past few months about how Europe intends to protect traditional farmers and producers — and the agrobiodiversity which underpins their livelihoods — in the face of globalization through, for example, the use of appellations of origin. A recent article in The Economist told the success story of one such appellation — prosecco, a sparkling wine made from the grape of the same name in a restricted area north of Venice. It seems to be taking off in a big way, and I’m not surprised: a chilled glass of good prosecco on a summer evening can be pretty much guaranteed to hit the spot. There is, however, a cloud on the horizon, in the unlikely shape of Paris Hilton. You see, everyone’s favourite socialite has been appearing in ads for a down-market prosecco (sold in cans!), and the president of the wine growers association of Treviso doesn’t like it at all: “Paris Hilton is sensationalism. It’s not good. It’s not adequate for Prosecco.” ((Thanks to Michael Hermann for pointing out this story. I don’t google Paris Hilton much so I doubt I’d have ever found it.)) Meetings will be held, fingers will be wagged, strong letters will be written: it’s pretty clear no stone will be left unturned by the good vintners of Treviso in their effort to protect the good name of prosecco. ((BTW, this post is further proof — if any were needed — of a very acute observation about Paris Hilton made by the great Rex Sorgatz some months ago now.))