Brainfood: Food diversity, Vigna salt tolerance, Medicinal rice, Sustainable intensification, US wild potatoes, Ethiopian potatoes, Temperate rice, Brazilian maize, Soybean cores, Pea cores, Danish cattle viability

On-Farm Crop Species Richness Is Associated with Household Diet Diversity and Quality in Subsistence- and Market-Oriented Farming Households in Malawi. Correlation is not causation, but one gets one’s victories where one can.
Agroecology and healthy food systems in semi-humid tropical Africa: Participatory research with vulnerable farming households in Malawi. See above.
Diversity and Evolution of Salt Tolerance in the Genus Vigna. Salt tolerance has evolved at least 4 times in the genus among coastal species.
An ethnobotanical study of traditional rice landraces (Oryza sativa L.) used for medical treatment in selected local communities of the Philippines. 19 landraces are used to treat a variety of nutritional and other complaints.
Is it time for a socio-ecological revolution in agriculture? Sustainable intensification is often neither.
Core Collections of Potato (Solanum) Species Native to the USA. Only two species, but more collecting needed, though one population of one of the species captures 82% of total AFLP bands. In other news, people still using AFLPs.
Genetic Diversity and Relationship of Ethiopian Potato Varieties to Germplasm from North America, Europe and the International Potato Center. 15 unique Ethiopian genotypes reflects 2 distinct introductions from Europe.
Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Rice Varieties Cultivated in Temperate Regions. 217 varieties from temperate regions show much diversity, structured by grain type and origin.
Genetic Vulnerability and the Relationship of Commercial Germplasms of Maize in Brazil with the Nested Association Mapping Parents. Brazilian commercial maize hybrids are pretty diverse, but show little overlap with the diversity of the NAM parents.
Evaluation of resistance to Phytophthora sojae in soybean mini core collections using an improved assay system. Resistant materials made up about a third of the world mini-core, but <10% of the Japanese mini-core.
Genetic Diversity of Chinese and Global Pea (Pisum sativum L.) Collections. The USDA global core was more diverse than the Chinese core, which was pretty diverse anyway.
Population viability analysis on a native Danish cattle breed. Jutland cattle has 122 years if nothing is done, but things can be done.

Fresh Nibbles

A paean to diverse diets is just what we all need.
And another one, from the MIT Technology Review of all places.
Menawhile, there’s only one reference to dietary diversity in the World Bank’s investment framework for nutrition.
Maybe you have to quantify that diversity before you can save it? Now where have I heard that before?
Meanwhile, Europe reports on biodiversity-friendly farming practices. Does that include the biodiversity of the actual crops? Perhaps surprisingly, yes!
You want biodiversity-friendly farming practices? Talk to Indigenous people. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has launched an e-consultation on “Preserving, strengthening and promoting Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems and traditional practices for sustainable food systems.”
There’s diversity in asparagus too.
Genebanks can help with those biodiversity-friendly practices, diverse diets and rops and Indigenous practices.
Even big international genebanks.
Even the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
But some are in trouble.
Though others are coming back.

Published on November 7, 2024

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