Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog has an intriguing map from a paper on human genetic diversity in island South East Asia showing a sharp cline across Wallace’s Line. The genetic cline corresponds to a cline in phenotype which was actually recognized by Wallace himself. The authors… …conclude that this phenotypic gradient probably reflects mixing of two long-separated …
FAO has a book out called Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems, published with the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE). There’s an informative interview with Barbara Burlingame, senior nutrition officer at FAO and coordinator for the book, on the FAO InTouch website. Unfortunately, this is only available internally at FAO, for reasons which elude …
Smithsonian Magazine has a long, wonderful piece this month about the breadfruit — and Captain Bligh — in Jamaica. It’s by Caroline Alexander, who wrote a book on the famous mutiny, The Bounty. People forget that after the Bounty debacle in 1789, Bligh eventually, doggedly went back to the Pacific and completed his original mission …
Continue reading ““I find that no Plants were as yet collected for His Majestys Garden at Kew””
If you’re here from Tangled Bank 102, welcome. Go vote, please. If you’re here anyway, go read Tangled Bank. Bleeding canker threatens British horse chestnuts. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, fertilizers threaten the Drumstick Truffleclub. Michael Pollan welcomes higher food prices. And more on his new book on “nutritionism”: eat food (not individual nutrients); mostly plant-derived; …
Are genebanks becoming sexy or something? In the past few days there have been: a VOA News piece on the USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit at the Geneva, NY campus of Cornell University, focusing on their world-famous apple collection; an article in Farm & Ranch Guide on the USDA’s Small Grains Collection at the University …