Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
If we’re feeding more people, more cheaply, how bad can that be?
Watch Dan Barber’s mesmerizing TedTalk and get the answers to that rhetorical question. This is storytelling at its best, storytelling with a real point, storytelling that could change the way people think.
Ah, to get lost on the Tequila Trail!
Paul Mitchell, of the haskap Canada website, clarifies:
Here is a link to the University of Saskatchewan’s fruit science program: http://www.fruit.usask.ca/haskap.html.
It was both Dr. Bob Bors from the U of S and Maxine Thompson from the University of Oregon who made the breeding advancements that led to the interest in these curious plants.
There actually was virtual international conference late last fall. It was held solely for researchers. Most of the material attendees were from Eastern Europe and Russia. I know that Dr. Bors had some involvement but I have not seen anything published as of yet.
That’s why we love the internet.
Proud to steal a great phrase when I find one, here are links to the original and two discussion — at Ethicurean and The Agricultural Law Blog — of a recent article on The Femivore’s Dilemma, about the prevalence of women in the new old food movement. Of course to my literal mind a femivore is one who eats females 1 which, of course is generally what we do. Either females or ex-males. But the more profound ideas behind the article and the commentaries are fascinating. Personally, I’m not sure that there really is a gender divide, and it would be salutary to see this in a global context. Which gives me a reason to link to this little contribution to International Women’s Day last week.
Irish botanists are using fungi that grow on cattle and sheep dung to study the history of farming in the Burren. Interesting enough in its own right, but it also reminded me that coprophagus organisms have been used in another part of the world, to the same end.