BBC Radio 4 has one of the longest-lived series devoted to all aspects of food: The Food Programme. Today’s broadcast looked at the importance of traditional African vegetables and fruits in nutrition, health, and offering farmers additional options for earning a better living. The programme rounded up many of the usual suspects from among our friends at Bioversity International, to very good effect. At least, that’s our opinion, and we’re sticking with it. Programme details are available at the Food Programme’s web site, which also has links that let you listen online. We’re hoping the episode will go into the archive, in which case we’ll post a link to that here. If not, well, there are other options …
Norman Borlaug R.I.P.
Agriculture pioneer Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, dies at 95.
Good and bad cassava news
CIAT recently announced that the first vehicle entirely powered by biofuel made from cassava roots is out and about in Colombia. That’s just as well, because that may be all that the crop will be good for in the future.
Andy talks about models
Listen to our friend, colleague and occasional contributor Andy Jarvis talk about his quest to document the predicted effect of climate change on the world’s top 50 crops. Via.
Time to chew
Time magazine must be on an agrobiodiversity high. First, yerba mate. Now, qat.