#economic botany

[katiajewelbox]

Giving chocolates is a way to show your love on Valentines Day. Human beings have been in love with chocolate and the Cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) for thousands of years, and today we will learn about the romance of culture and chocolate.

Although Cacao is most famously associated with Mesoamerican cultures, genetic studies indicate that Cacao was domesticated by indigenous Americans around 5,300 years ago in the Upper Amazon region. From there, Cacao cultivation spread north to Mexico. The Cacao fruit pulp was more commonly consumed in South America in Pre Columbian times while the Mesoamericans invented the technique of fermentation and roasting to utilise the Cacao nibs.

Archaeological evidence, such as chemical residues on ancient pottery shards, pinpoints the first use of Cacao drinks in Mesoamerica around 1600 BCE. By the time of the Classical Mayan civilization (250-900 CE), ground cacao nibs were mixed with water and spices by careful pouring between vessels to make a nourishing and invigorating hot drink which was consumed by people of all social classes. In the later Mexica (Aztec) civilization, cold cacao drink or xocoatl (bitter water in Nahuatl) exquisitely flavoured with flowers, fruits, chillies, and spices was reserved for the elite and ceremonial occasions. Cacao seeds were used as a form of currency for trade and barter during the Mexica Empire.

After the conquest of the Mexica Empire by Spain in 1521, cacao was one of the many new plant-based foods brought to Europe. In Spain, the locals of Andalusia experimented with the spicy xocoatl by adding cane sugar and dairy ingredients. It is said that drinking chocolate was so universally popular from the 17th century to the late 19th century that it prevented coffee from becoming mainstream in Spanish culture. Drinking chocolate caught on in the rest of Europe in the 1600’s but it was not until the mid 19th century that innovation in processing and chemistry allowed the invention of solid chocolate candies. Cadbury chocolate company is credited with marketing chocolates as a token of love for Valentines Day in 1868.

Chocolate in the modern world is not always a sweet story. Today, approximately 70% of the world’s cacao is produced in West African countries like Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Sadly, exploitative practices like child labour and enslavement are still rife in these countries’ Cacao farms. Chocolate lovers can help by buying Fair Trade certified chocolate products and other responsibly grown cacao products. Fortunately, cacao can be grown in sustainable agroforestry alongside native rainforest trees especially in Latin America. Cacao’s sacred and medicinal properties are experiencing a renaissance among “chocolate shamans” around the world who drawn upon indigenous knowledge to make the ethical production and mindful consumption of cacao a healing spiritual experience.

Humanity and Cacao have a long-lasting love that continues to evolve over time, and has the potential to benefit plants, people, and the planet. Ponder the storied history of Cacao if you indulge in chocolate this Valentines Day.

Image credits to Mexicolore

#katia plant scientist #botany #plant biology #plants #plant science #cacao #cacao tree #trees #economic botany #culture #cultural history #chocolate #drinking chocolate #spanish history #native american #mesoamerica #aztecs #mayans #mesoamericans #mexico #ceremonial cacao #shamans #fair trade #chocolates #food history #west africa #cacao nibs #cacao beans #aztec history #colonialism

[thebotanicalarcade]

n13_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: Plantæ utiliores :. London :Whittaker & Co.,1842-1850.. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53727706

#Botany #Economic #Medical #Pictorial works #Field Museum of Natural History Library #bhl:page=53727706 #dc:identifier=https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53727706 #artist:viaf=309730965 #hernaturalhistory #Mary Ann Burnett #M. A. Burnett #Q43370062 #illustrator:wikidata=Q43370062 #WomeninScience #flickr #Clitoria ternatea #Asian pigeonwings #bluebellvine #blue pea #butterfly pea #darwin pea #cordofan pea #botanical illustration #scientific illustration

[teachanarchy]

Watch "What is Botany? Crash Course Botany #1" on YouTube

#botany #ecology #geography #plants #food #agricultural #indigenous #permaculture #economics #Youtube

[worldofmetahumans]

We have plenty of jobs opened on WoMH. Interested in one of these? Go check out how to apply https://worldofmetahumans.com/ right NOW!

#job #jobs #open jobs #open #apply #apply now #superheroes #superhero #villain #hybrid #botany #home economics #dcu #dc universe #batman #superman #aquaman

[kamreadsandrecs]

#history #conservation #economics #science #biology #botany

[kammartinez]

#history #conservation #economics #science #biology #botany

[ammg-old2]

There's a lot of time for contemplation when you're milking cows in Mongolia. 90-year-old Lkhagvajav Bish has milked them for decades. She's a nomadic herder, and she follows them in their endless search for grass.

Today, the ger, or tent, she and her son live in is pitched in a valley surrounded by brown hills whose tops are white with frost, and as her hands squeeze the last milk from one of her herd, Bish reminisces about a time when this valley looked completely different.

"We've been wintering in this valley for 30 years," she says, looking away from her cows toward the hills in the distance. "Back then, the grass came up to my chest. It grew so tall that we had use a sickle and horse-drawn equipment to cut through it. But the grass of my time is gone. There's no longer enough to feed the animals."

The culprits stand innocently grazing nearby: cashmere goats. Their sharp hooves cut through the soil surface, and their eating habits — voraciously ripping up plants by their roots — make it impossible for grass to thrive.

But thriving isn't a problem for the goats. If there's no grass, livestock in Mongolia eat feed, a mix of grains that herders must buy in the city.

"Goats reproduce faster than all my other animals, even faster than my sheep!" Bish says with a frown. "Not too long ago, I used to have 20 of them. Now I've got 150. I don't want that many. They're just taking over."

Thirty years ago, when the grass grew tall, cashmere goats made up 19 percent of all livestock in Mongolia. Since then, their numbers have skyrocketed to make up 60 percent today.

The explanation goes beyond the animals' capacity to breed. This is about money.

China, Mongolia's biggest trading partner and southern neighbor, has strict controls on importing meat and milk from Mongolian sheep and cows, but not on cashmere. It is the biggest consumer of cashmere from Mongolia.

Mongolia produces a third of the global supply, and cashmere makes up 40 percent of the country's nonmineral exports. Mongolia produced more than 7,000 tons of cashmere in 2015, the last year on record.

The rise of China's consumer class has meant the price of cashmere has risen by more than 60 percent since the 1980s.

Now, Mongolia's million nomadic herders have turned to herding goats to make a living, destroying their own grasslands in the process. In the past, they relied on cows, sheep, camels and yaks to make a living instead.

"Today, Mongolian rangeland is at a crossroads," says Bulgamaa Densambuu, a researcher for the Swiss-funded Green-Gold project. Her organization focuses on preventing overgrazing of Mongolia's grasslands, which Densambuu calls "rangeland."

Densambuu recently completed a survey that found 65 percent of Mongolia's grasslands have been degraded due to overgrazing of cashmere goats and to climate change. The climate change has led to a 4-degree Fahrenheit rise in average temperature in Mongolia, outpacing the rest of the world by three degrees.

But Densambuu hasn't lost hope.

"Ninety percent of this total degraded rangelands can be recovered naturally within 10 years if we can change existing management," she says from her office in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. "But if we can't change the existing management today, it will be too late after five to 10 years."

By then, she says, Mongolia's grasslands would be transformed into an ecosystem that would be unusable, bringing an end to Mongolians' traditional way of life. "A desert would be much healthier," she says.

That's why Densambuu and other activists and groups are working with herders to come up with viable solutions. Gankhuyag Nyam-Ochir, who directs the Mongolian Association of Pastureland User Groups, representing a third of all nomadic herders in Mongolia, says the trick is to supplement herders' income from cashmere goats with other animals that carry the promise of high revenue, like yaks or camels.

"Yak wool and the hair from a baby camel have fibers that are just as fine as the wool from a cashmere goat," says Nyam-Ochir. "If a baby camel's hair is combed early in its life, its hair is much finer than a cashmere goat."

Nyam-Ochir is convincing his herders to trade in their goats for camels, whose soft paws are much easier on the land. He says if herders don't start to get rid of their goats now, Mongolia's grasslands are doomed.

But try telling that to Lkhagvajav Bish, the 90-year-old herder.

"Yes, I know my goats are harmful to our grassland and the more we have, the worse our land becomes," says Bish. "I get that. But this is how we earn our money."

Bish prepares a pot of salty milk tea inside her ger while her goats graze outside. She says there is so little grass left that she's had to buy supplemental grains to feed her livestock, otherwise they'd die. But not the goats, she says. They seem to live through anything. She says she doesn't know what the answer is.

"All I can do," the 90-year-old says after a sip of hot tea, "is watch my grassland disappear."

#economics #environmentalism #climate change #global warming #ecology #botany #agriculture #sustainable agriculture #animals #textiles #goats #camels #mongolia #wool #cashmere

[don-lichterman]

Co-work space to open in Schoharie | Business News

Co-work space to open in Schoharie | Business News

The Schoharie Economic Enterprise Corp. is preparing for the grand opening of its new collaborative coworking space called 287 Main in downtown Schoharie, at the same address. The space is designed “to bring people together in a 21st-century environment to connect, collaborate, and grow,” according to a media release. The grand opening is scheduled for later this summer. SEEC is partnering with…

View On WordPress

#Bank #banking #botany #Branch #business #Cowork #experience #finance #News #Open #release #Schoharie #schoharie economic enterprise corp. #sidney federal credit union #Space #teller #work

[transmutationisms]

the idea that 'science' is an unmitigated and inherent social good---a politically neutral and universally beneficial process of accumulating knowledge---is wildly ahistorical and dangerously, wilfully ignorant of the role that science and its purveyors / practitioners have played in imperial and colonial expansion. warwick anderson went so far as to say that colonial medicine was better understood as a discourse of settlement than one of health promotion, & we can see this quite easily in, for example, french doctors' use of the nostalgia diagnosis to guide colonial policy in algeria in the 1830s, attempting to securely settle a french population there; or in the development of a science of 'water cures', spa treatments considered to mitigate the insalubrious effects of foreign (particularly tropical) environments, for which the french army by the 1890s granted routine medical leave because the 'health' of its soldiers was not a matter of individual interest but a state resource.

but medicine is in many ways an easy case when it comes to the relationship between science and the state; all too often we still seem reluctant to acknowledge, for example, the pursuit of economic botany and animal / plant breeding in the early modern period as contributors to discourses of acclimatisation and proto-eugenics, sciences that were given state financial support on these utilitarian grounds & not for any high-minded general pursuit of 'knowledge'; or the development of navigational instruments and knowledge from the 14th century or so onward as a project explicitly funded and intended to permit faster, cheaper, more reliable colonial exploration and travel; or the sheer amount of research in physics and chemistry that has been and is devoted to weapons development or natural resource extraction; or the promise of space travel as a further possibility for obtaining raw materials as well as for settlement---often marketed in terms and visual rhetoric explicitly comparing the 'space colony' to its terrestrial precursor: 'the final frontier', depicted as both lush tropical paradise & as rugged american west, waiting to be conquered & brought to heel.

i am of course not hostile to 'science' in any totalising way; this would be as indefensible a position as the automatic 'defence' of all such practices; they're not monolithic or intrinsically doomed to serve state interests. but it is simply irresponsible to pretend that the scientific inquiry into something---describing it, measuring it, taxonomising it---is inherently a social good, or that the pursuit of 'knowledge' is ever an apolitical endeavour. knowing, seeing, & measuring the world grant immense power; states and empires know this. scientific inquiry is not tangentially related to imperial and colonial expansion; often it is a critical piece of the machinery by which these processes occur. wilful ignorance of this fact in favour of an optimistic conception of science as a universal social good is not just inaccurate but propagandistic & an advancement of state & imperial interests.

#science

[katiajewelbox]

Meet the multicultural Uchiki Kuri (Cucurbita maxima) squash! 

The Uchiki Kuri is one of Japan’s favourite squashes and considered part of Japanese traditional cuisine. However, squash are not native to Japan, so historians think that the ancestors of the Uchiki Kuri were brought to Japan from North America after Japan opened to trade with the USA in 1853. This squash belongs to the Hubbard squash species, which is the species Native Americans of North America originally domesticated. The squash is so popular in Japan that most is actually grown in California and imported to Japan to meet demands! From Japan, the Kuri squash found great popularity in both France and Germany where it is known as the Portimarron. Both the name Uchiki Kuri and Portimarron refer to the squash’s chestnut-like flavour.

#squash #winter squash #autumn colours #big squash #uchiki #uchiki kuri #japanese squash #orange squash #harvest #autumncore #Pumpkin #katia plant scientist #botany #economic botany #plant biology #plant photography

[cartermagazine]

Today In History

Dr. George Washington Carver, scientist and discoverer of over 300 products from the peanut, was successful in getting a Branch Agricultural Experiment Station and Agricultural School at Tuskegee Normal School on this date February 15, 1897.

Born a slave on a Missouri farm in 1865, Carver became the first black student and the first black faculty member at what is now Iowa State University. The well-respected botanist led the bacterial laboratory work in the Systematic Botany Department. But at the urging of Booker T. Washington, Carver moved to Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to serve as the school’s director of agriculture. He used his agricultural research to help black farmers become more self-sufficient and less reliant on cotton, the major cash crop of the South.

Carver developed numerous products and processes that expanded the range of Southern agriculture. At Tuskegee, Carver developed his crop rotation method, which alternated nitrate-producing legumes such as peanuts and corn with cotton, which depletes the soil of its nutrients. His innovations have been credited with the South’s economic survival in the early part of the 20th century.

CARTER™️ Magazine

#george washington carver #carter magazine #carter #historyandhiphop365 #wherehistoryandhiphopmeet #history #cartermagazine #today in history #staywoke #blackhistory #blackhistorymonth

[thebotanicalarcade]

n17_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: Plantæ utiliores :. London :Whittaker & Co.,1842-1850.. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53720222

#Botany #Economic #Medical #Pictorial works #Field Museum of Natural History Library #bhl:page=53720222 #dc:identifier=https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53720222 #artist:viaf=309730965 #hernaturalhistory #Mary Ann Burnett #M. A. Burnett #Q43370062 #illustrator:wikidata=Q43370062 #WomeninScience #flickr #Nicotiana Tabacuml #cultivated tobacco #tobacco #botanical illustration #scientific illustration

[teachanarchy]

GMOs are Nothing New: Plant Breeding & Gene Editing: Crash Course Botany...

#GMOs #genetically modified #food #agriculture #health #capitalism #economics #botany #Youtube

[gothhabiba]

new "let's lose my mind trying to trace a claim back while everyone makes it as difficult as possible, as though on purpose" saga for you:

everyone says that archaeological evidence suggests sesame seeds were cultivated in Syria and Palestine by around 3000 BC. I finally found a document among a bunch of random webpages that bothered to cite a source for this claim, which is: N M Nayar and K. L. Mehra, "Sesame: Its Uses, Botany, Cytogenetics and Origin." Economic botany vol 24, 20-31. Jan 1970.

the source is a bit old, but if I don't find a more recent source disputing that claim based on new evidence then certainly I'll use it.

the source does contain the claim I'm looking for ("Archaeological evidence has shown that sesame was cultivated in Palestine and Syria during the Chalcolithic period, around 3000 BC," p. 27), but it doesn't actually report any of the archaeological evidence in question:

instead, it cites a different source--the notation is a little confusing (the numbers don't refer to footnotes but to a numbered list of sources, which I have never seen before)--but I think what is cited is: Albright, W. F. 1956. The archaeology of Palestine. Pelican Books, London.

save the obnoxious lack of any reference to a page number, this is great, right?! except that nowhere in the description of archaeological finds from the Chalcolithic period (in fact, nowhere in the book at all) is sesame mentioned. I have to laugh or I'll cry.

#hummus research saga

[caw-oticdork]

Hiya! I started listening to the Lost Terminal because you mentioned it on here. I'm a few seasons in and really loving it. My friend is looking for some new narrative pods and I know you listen to a bunch. Got any suggestions? They can be finished or ongoing.

Oh do I! Have a couple, in alphabetical order:

Absolutely No Adventures - An outright pratchettesque fantasy parody about a (very) Chosen One who has studied the art of baking instead heeding the call to adventure and refuses to go on any quests.

Care and Feeding of Werewolves - A (in-universe) podcast addressing current events and issues in the (American) paranormal community, hosted by a witch and medical practitioner. Has very good plot and worldbuilding.

Folxlore - Queer horror podcast set in Glasgow. Excellent show. "This apartment complex is very haunted, extremely cursed, and it sometimes randomly shifts to an eldritch nightmare realm. Everyone here's queer though, including the building itself. 4 stars out of 5."

Gabriela & The Inn Between - A recent botany undergrad takes a job as Innkeeper at an inn with very strange and unusual guests. Cozy and low-stakes.

Gastronaut - Set a couple hundred years from now, a food journalist travels from Earth, then Mars, then a distant space colony. He's pathetic but in a good way. Excellent food descriptions, nice anti-capitalistic and anti-colonialist themes. Higher stakes and fewer steaks than expected.

Ghost Wax - I've always disagreed with the idea that necromancers are always evil. This show agrees - it's a horror podcast about an ancient necromancer solving supernatural murders by interviewing the victims. Very thrilling. Many feels.

Icarus Rising - Queer airship pirates! Stow-aways! Rebellion! Chases and Thrills! High-stakes drama and action among the clouds! An adorable ship cat!

Kalila Stormfire's Economical Magick Services - Very cool story about witches, fairies, werewolves, and more, a story about what makes a community, about modern-day working class neighborhoods, psychology, love, and of course magic.

Parkdale Haunt - This one I haven't listened to yet, but I've heard very good things about it. It's a horror show about a haunted house, set in Toronto, made with love for that city. Disregard this suggestion if you don't like Toronto, I've never been.

SCP: Find Us Alive - A podcast set in the SCP universe, about a site getting sucked into some sort of pocket dimension that keeps resetting in a sort of time loop. Very interesting cast of characters. Requires minimal knowledge about how the SCP Foundation works.

Starfall - Fantasy audio drama about the adventures of a theatre troupe that uses magical items and illusions in their work, and about a young warrior with mysterious powers who joins them.

Tell No Tales - Horror story about a company that specialises in removing ghosts from haunted places. The protagonist quickly becomes concerned about the ethics of that and tries to prove that they need to start treating spirits with the humanity they deserve.

The Antique Shop - Urban Fantasy drama about a student getting a job at the kind of antiques shop that you only find when you need to. Lots of cursed items. An excellent cat. Queerplatonic relationships.

The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality - An AI audio tour guide shows you various interesting exhibits and learns how to be a person. There's lots of feelings here.

The Strange Case of Starship Iris - Sci-Fi story set in the aftermath of a war between Earth and extraterrestrials. It's about outer space, survival, espionage, resistance, identity, friendship, found family, romance, and secrets. The intro song is excellent.

The Tower - A young woman climbs an ancient, unfathomably tall tower from a forgotten age. It stretches up into the sky, through the smog and the clouds. Very vibes.

The White Vault - Travel Is Not Advised. Very scary story about what's been hiding below the ice and the stone. What's been slumbering for ages. What's now beginning to wake anew.

I hope this selection helps! I have more, but I felt it would be better to keep the list short-ish.

#podcast recommendation

[fatehbaz]

And the penal colony was to remain a viable alternative to the penitentiary, not only in nineteenth-century Britain, but also in twentieth-century France [...]. But what might it mean to have a rigorous and distant form of imprisonment, located in a colony and continuing until the mid–twentieth century? [...]

---

French Guiana emerged as an early favorite for the placement of a French penal colony. [...] Daniel Lescallier, [...] authored a work entitled [...] (Exposition of the means by which to develop French Guiana). In it he points to the example the British have set in exporting offenders to the colonies [...]. Louis-Napoleon, still serving in the capacity of president of the republic, threw his weight behind [...] the exile of criminals as well as political dissidents. “It seems possible to me,” he declared near the end of 1850, “to render the punishment of hard labor more efficient, more moralizing, less expensive [...], by using it to advance French colonization.” [...] The era of the French penal colony was now open; the new French Empire had begun its Botany Bay, even as the British original [penal colony in Australia] wound to a close. [...] The double logic of the British system also drives the French imagination; proposals alternatively concentrate on a desire to punish criminals and rid the Metropole of their presence, on the one hand, and a hope of furthering the work of colonial expansion and economic progress, on the other. Within this logic the focus shifts between the need to colonize, the need to punish [...].

In the case of France, it shimmers with colonial fantasy, allowing future Australias to emerge on tropical horizons. [...] [T]he penal colony requires location. The specificity of the site matters; it is the very place that is to enact punishment [...]. The penal colony is in essence a geographic technique [...]. But despite frequent outcries and sensational reports, the French Guiana penal establishment continued to exist through the end of World War II. [...] As geography itself becomes a technique of isolation, the French penal experiment in Guiana threatens further ordeals implicit in separation from all that is civilized. [...] In sensational accounts these tropics incessantly punish [...]: “Fever and dysentery get every man! Clouds of buzzing mosquitoes and fire ants sting your aching body while you labor [...].” As the commandant of the bagne would inform convicts on their arrival, “The real guards here are the jungle and the sea.” [...] Many of the prisoners, after all, were from urban environments [...]. The terror of Devil's Island takes shape amid metaphoric invocations of the jungle and of the savage [...].

---

For those in Metropolitan France the penal colony served as a hidden punishment, a distant if graphic terror, retaining elements of torture out of public view. Yet it retained a veneer of reformation, for the convicts were still told to “make a new life for themselves.” In addition, shipping convicts away from France in the name of colonization cloaked their punishment in the robes of the “civilizing” mission: they would be part of an effort to build a greater France, to develop Guiana, and to integrate it into a Franco-world system. At the same time the bagne underscored that resistance to the humane norms of France could lead to decivilization and exile in the wilderness. [...]

---

For those sent to French Guiana, however, the penal colony served directly as a public display, a constant reminder of the operations of justice. The convicts were not merely confined but forced to labor on public works. Official executions were performed by that once-humane instrument, the guillotine, but before an audience of convicts and by a fellow convict, far beyond the gates of Paris. A slower execution, that of the “dry guillotine,” the effects of the tropical climate, surrounded the entire process of deportation, reminding the convicts that this punishment could only happen here and not within Metropolitan boundaries. Theirs was a raw and primitive environment, one of torture and deprivation away from the public eye. Against the truth invoked in their conviction -- justice -- lay a suggested truth invoked in their punishment: no longer civilized, they were no longer human.

---

And for those already living in French Guiana, the penal colony also served as a public spectacle, if one not aimed directly at them or of their making. Not only did the proximity of prison life to their own lives parade the power of justice before them in an immediate fashion, but the constant importation of prisoners for this apparatus of punishment emphasized the particularly colonial nature of this power. Uncivilized elements were sent to them; their relation to France was that of a repository for human waste, and acts and punishments deemed unseemly for the homeland could still occur within their boundaries.

In addition, the appropriation of the names “Guyane” and “Cayenne” in myths of the bagne and “Devil's Island” precluded other identities, while burdening the area with a symbolic brand and a historical chain to France. “The bagne,” writes Ian Hammel, “left only a disastrous brand on Guiana.”

Brand here means “trademark” as well as “scar,” indicating purpose, function, and maker.

To be remembered as a penal colony is to be remembered not only as a prison, an exotic place of horror, but also as a colony, the object and product of another. [...] Modernizing France, a convulsive patchwork of provinces, cities, farms, and factories, casts its shadow overseas. [...] The penal colony takes shape at a crucial moment in European colonial understandings of place and labor. Slavery had just been abolished in the French Empire […]. If slavery were at an end, then the crucial question facing the colony was that of finding an alternative source of labor [...], not only in French Guiana, but also throughout colonies built on the plantation model.

---

All text above by: Peter Redfield. Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana. 2000. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

#abolition #ecology #forests #imperial #caribbean #colonial #landscape #haunted #futures #modernity