Bolivia: Crazy for Quinoa
The International Fund for Agricultural Development, long a supporter of projects to make use of neglected and underutilized species, has released a little video film celebrating quinoa. Maybe the...
View ArticleNibbles: Gates & Slim, Aquino, Home genebank, Quinoa indigestion, Cornish...
Bigshots visit CIMMYT, miss opportunity to mention genebank. No, wait… Bigshot visits IRRI, including genebank. Yeah but who needs those anyway, you can make your own! Now the French want their say on...
View ArticleNibbles: BXW, GMOs, Quinoa, Farm incomes, WIPO, Diverse diets, Agroforestry,...
Plantwise says you can manage banana xanthomonas wilt; so no need for GMOs? DG of Bioversity says “adopt transgenic crops carefully and on a case to case basis”. “You can contribute to the revision of...
View ArticleNibbles: Rwandan genebank, Quinoa consumption, Pre-Columbian garden,...
Today’s new national genebank for food security? Step proudly forward, Rwanda! Bolivians are eating three times more quinoa. Or maybe three times more Bolivians are eating quinoa. Growing history in a...
View ArticleUnited colours of Quinoa
Excitement here is mounting as we wait for the UN officially to open the International Year of Quinoa in New York at 10 am EST, in just half an hour. To calm down, I had a quick look at FAO’s own paean...
View ArticleI’ve got your key right here
You just know it’s going to be that sort of day when you see articles appearing in your RSS feed within minutes of each other saying first that no-till farming and then sustainable tuna hold the key to...
View ArticleBrainfood: Flower microbiome, Salt screening, Sustainble fisheries,...
Unexpected Diversity during Community Succession in the Apple Flower Microbiome. Could be important in disease management. Plant Tissue Culture: A Useful Measure for the Screening of Salt Tolerance in...
View ArticleNibbles: Quinoazzzzz, Haiti seed bank, Guatemala seed bank, Seed systems,...
This quinoa thing is getting tedious. Clinton brings a seed bank to Haiti, “which will support efforts to increase agricultural production.” Will be interesting to see how exactly it does that....
View ArticleNibbles: Cucurbits, Climate change cuisine, Passover pulses, Quinoa grant,...
The botanist in the kitchen takes on the diversity of squashes. And pumpkins. And some gourds. So we don’t have to. Aren’t you glad we’re here to tell you that “Potato Beans” are Apios americana? Why...
View ArticleNibbles: Property rights, Dryland crops, New tomato, CGIAR genebanks, Quinoa...
Why tenure matters. And why it doesn’t. Book on alternative crops for dry areas. Not that alternative, settle down. And anyway, how do they do in mixtures? And the award for Best New Variety of the...
View ArticleNibbles: FAO Commission, Alpine plants conference, Young breeders, Indian...
Summary of that 14th Session of the CGRFA we were all following last week. Conferences on “Changes in alpine and arctic flora under climate change” we’ll all be following in September. If you’re from...
View ArticleNibbles: Brazil nut, PVP, Dog evolution, Plant Treaty in India, Kerala...
The Brazil nut needs its pollinators. How USDA protects plant varieties. American dogs are Asian, not European. India Nepal working out how to implement the ITPGRFA. Kerala’s vegetable terrace...
View ArticleNibbles: Hunger, Breeds, Jatropha, Value chains, Vegetables, Temperature, Quinoa
The Lancet waxes optimistic on hunger and poverty goals. Korea keen to help compile information on African livestock. Is there nothing Jatropha cannot do? Now it’s a carbon sink. Fijian ginger and...
View ArticleNibbles: Citrus cryo, Vegetables everywhere, Threatened ecosystems, Brazilian...
Saving citrus by freezing it. WorldVeg pushing tomatoes in the Solomons. New York next? Ah, but what they really need is Mind Gardens. Oh, and a how-to-save-seeds book. Or maybe just Jeremy’s latest...
View ArticleThe great quinoa debate: statistics to the rescue
Just when I thought is was safe to ignore quinoa for the rest of its international year, along comes Chris Smaje’s thoughtful piece The Great Quinoa Debate, or Why We Need Social Statisticians and...
View ArticleNibbles: Traditional knowledge, Digital herbarium, Digital Vavilov Centres,...
Paying attention to traditional knowledge to help with climate change … in New England! Two million New York Botanical Gardens herbarium sheets digitized, possibly including some crop wild relatives....
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David Lynch cooks quinoa
I borrowed the image from the same place that brought this — David Lynch cooks quinoa — to the world’s attention. No really. But where’s the high-quality version? And the missing minutes? C’mon. And...
View ArticleNibbles: Book, Sorghum, Plant breeding, Quinoa, Herbal medicines,...
Here’s a bunch of better-late-than-never links, some of which will be good this time next year. A new book on Plant Genetic Resources and Climate Change. I expect it covers sorghum, which NPR calls the...
View ArticleNibbles: Panama disease, N2Africa, Trees and CC, CITES, Jordanian farmers and...
Panama comes to SE Asia. Banana people will understand. And will know what to do? Shucks, just missed the N2Africa project first phase results presentation shindig in Nairobi. All about the power and...
View ArticleBrainfood: Mixtures and productivity, Pesticides and soil biota, Andean...
Changes in the Abundance of Grassland Species in Monocultures versus Mixtures and Their Relation to Biodiversity Effects. Monocultures are ok for productivity, but only initially. Agricultural soils,...
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