- “Genetically modified bananas grown in far north Queensland and bound for Africa are about to undergo human trials in the United States.” Because … GM!
- More on those passenger pigeons.
- A big old conference on Agriculture and climate change, February 2015.
- Then again, we could all change what we eat to combat climate change.
- Or change what we grow. Report on some perennial grain experiments.
- Mushrooms for Uganda, a new project sees the light of day.
- “The determinants and extent of crop diversification among smallholder farmers” in Zambia. It’s IFPRI, Jake.
- I really just wanted a reason to link to this site, so I searched for millet. I’ll bet there’s more there of more direct interest.
Nibbles: Genomes galore: beans, sheep, citrus, Breeding from “weeds”, Talks, Old wheat, Adaptation, Popped sorghum, Managing BXW
Can’t move for genomes today.
- First off, Phaseolus vulgaris.
- Next up, sheep: one genome, three stories:
- And citrus diversity: “Citrus has incestuous genes. Nothing is pure.”
But there is other stuff too.
- How weeds could feed billions. Not by eating them but by breeding from them. Are crop wild relatives really all weeds?
- TED talks on biodiversity. I suppose we should be grateful for 1.5 out of 30.
- A New York baker has been exploring tumminia wheat. Without telling us.
- Adaptation to climate change hardly worth it, according to econ 101.
- So you want to make your own popped sorghum? All you need is a microwave and a paper bag.
- ProMusa reports on an easier and better way for banana farmers to manage Xanthomonas wilt.
Nibbles: Uncommon grains, Wheat model, Yield gains, Cheese bugs, Grapes, Bee biodiversity, Pakistan seed industry, Bangladesh nutrition, Baobab juice
- Could teff or millets topple wheat, maize and rice? Anyone for unintended consequences?
- Not if superior models lead to bigger wheat harvests. ’Cos that’s all it takes.
- That and a good book: Yield Gains in Major U.S. Field Crops.
- Did somebody mention models? Vorarlberger Bergkäse is a model cheese, and “The rind is the boundary layer between a cheese and its environment”. Welcome to the cheese microbiome.
- What’s the difference between a wine grape and a table grape? Simple: Pectic-{beta}(1,4)-galactan, extensin and arabinogalactan-protein epitopes.
- Bee biodiversity results in mo’ bigger blueberries. Now to make use of that.
- Seed policy wonks – you know who you are – will thrill to IFPRI’s new report: The seed industry in Pakistan.
- So how does that square with the Financial Express of Bangladesh’s discovery that “Agro biodiversity can improve nutrition and health”?
- How to make baobab juice. Time to edit those factsheets.
Featured: Resident evil
Cédric shares the latest intelligence on conservation of agricultural biodiversity:
Talking about Svalbard, I received this piece by a Food First board member in my inbox recently. I’ve read a lot of similar posts but this one tops them all. To sum it up: ex situ conservation = pure evil; in situ conservation = blissful harmony.
Uh-huh.
How is yoghurt like a hybrid seed?
An audio recording of a 90-minute panel discussion is not something to tangle lightly with, not even when the topic is one of my favourites: fermentation. I finally got around to it, though, and I’m very glad I did.
The recording dates from exactly a year ago today, which I swear I didn’t know before writing this, and a discussion at the American Museum of Natural History as part of their series Adventures in the Global Kitchen. The Art of Fermentation featured Sandor Katz, who needs no introduction to fermentation heads, and Dan Felder, head of research and development at the Momofuku Culinary Lab. 1
I found it really fascinating even though – possibly because – I know a bit about fermentation. And one bit in particular joined fermentation to another interest: seeds and intellectual property rights. I know!
Starting at about 1 hr and 8 mins, Sandor Katz was explaining why, if you decide to do home-made yoghurt with most store-bought yoghurt as a starter, it is ok for the first generation or two but by three and four is pretty runny and not very good. He said that bulk industrial yoghurt depends on pure cultures of just two species of bacterium, Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. Local, heirloom yoghurts, if you will, contain those two as part of a larger ecosystem, and the ecosystem as a whole is able to defend itself from microbial interlopers, whereas the pure cultures are not. And that’s why an heirloom yoghurt can be renewed generation after generation without changing much in its properties.
Katz pointed out that greater control for the manufacturer means some benefits but less self-sufficiency for the consumer. You can buy their yoghurt, but you can’t use it to make your own. And he specifically likened that to the development of F1 hybrid seeds, which likewise offer benefits at the expense of self-sufficiency. Because you can’t save your own seeds from F1 hybrids.
Except, of course, that you can. You don’t get what you started off with, but that’s the point. With time and space and a little bit of knowledge you can dehybridise F1s, exploiting all the goodies that the breeders put in there and, who knows, coming up with something as good or better and being able to maintain that generation to generation. I have no idea whether you can do that with industrial yoghurt, exposing it to a bit more wild culture and selecting among mini-batches.
And that led to a not very satisfactory discussion of intellectual property rights as they relate to ferments and the kind of work Dan Felder is doing with Momofuku. “I can’t talk about that,” he said, disarmingly. But then he did, worrying that plagiarism was much more common than credit and attribution among chefs. And that’s why they keep some things secret.
Katz then pointed out that we owe all the ferments and most of the techniques in use today to generations of experimenters before us. Sound familiar?
Ferments and techniques, but not substrates, countered Felder, who makes a miso based on Sicilian pistachios, and much else besides. He was proud to accept that he was building on generations of experimentation and tradition. Just not writing it up on Twitter.