Brainfood: Diversification, Chefs, African rice breeding, Sustainable livestock, Miscanthus origin, Sweetpotato diversity, Wild banana seeds, Olive diversity, Tilapia diversity, Half Earth, Food access, Speedy pigeonpea, Peanut allergy, Colombian seed saving

Modelling crop diversification and association effects in agricultural systems. Intercrop, people!
Cooking up Diverse Diets: Advancing Biodiversity in Food and Agriculture through Collaborations with Chefs. Yeah, yeah, chefs are great. Now show me the data.
Multivariate analysis and selection criteria for identification of African rice (Oryza glaberrima) for genetic improvement of indica rice cultivars. Go for high number of productive tillers and early maturity.
Strategies for Sustainable Use of Indigenous Cattle Genetic Resources in Southern Africa. Not just genetic improvement: also need better nutrition, healthcare, marketing, and infrastructure; integration and empowerment of women and youth; and capacity building, regulatory, and policy frameworks. Not unlike crops, really.
Population structure of Miscanthus sacchariflorus reveals two major polyploidization events, tetraploid-mediated unidirectional introgression from diploid M. sinensis, and diversity centred around the Yellow Sea. The centre of origin in under water.
Remote sensing for agricultural applications: A meta-review. Yeah, yeah. Call me when you have a way of distinguishing landraces from modern varieties.
Genetic Diversity of Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas L. Lam) Germplasms Collected Worldwide Using Chloroplast SSR Markers. 500 is not enough.
Seed germination and storage studies in seed-fertile Musa indandamanensis and its conservation. Intermediate.
Cultivated olive diversification at local and regional scales: evidence from the genetic characterization of French genetic resources. Areas with unexpected frosts have been, paradoxically, good for olive diversity.
Genetic diversity of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) throughout West Africa. Corresponds to river basins. Well there’s a shocker.
Protecting half of the planet could directly affect over one billion people. Add lowest-footprint pixels to PAs until you get to 50% coverage of each ecoregion, then count how many people live in PAs, for good or ill.
Food Access Deficiencies in Sub-saharan Africa: Prevalence and Implications for Agricultural Interventions. Livestock helps, higher income not necessarily.
Can a speed breeding approach accelerate genetic gain in pigeonpea? I’m going to guess yes.
Hypoallergen Peanut Lines Identified Through Large-Scale Phenotyping of Global Diversity Panel: Providing Hope Toward Addressing One of the Major Global Food Safety Concerns. Lots of diversity to play with.
Revolturas: resisting multinational seed corporations and legal seed regimes through seed-saving practices and activism in Colombia. Everybody’s at it.

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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