- Beyond the binary: Queer inclusion and invisible labour in Samoa’s fisheries value chains. Fisheries in Samoa depend on significant but largely unrecognized labour by LGBTQ+ people, particularly fa’afafine and fa’afatama, whose contributions are overlooked by policies based on rigid gender categories.
- Genetic and morphological diversity of indigenous chicken of Kenya: A Review. Kenya’s indigenous chickens are adapted to diverse environments, resilient to disease, and important for rural livelihoods.
- Uncovering the lives of rock doves (Columba livia) in Late Bronze Age Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus. Rock doves lived alongside people in a major Late Bronze Age port city, revealing a more complex relationship than simple domestication in which doves exploited urban environments while providing food and other resources.
- Farmed Escapees Threaten MHC Diversity in Wild Atlantic Salmon. Escaped farmed Atlantic salmon can erode the diversity of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes in wild populations through interbreeding, which could reduce the long-term resilience and adaptability of wild salmon.
- Creation of intermuscular bone-free genetic mutants in grass carp and multiomics reveals molecular regulatory basis. Genome editing was used to produce grass carp lacking the numerous fine intermuscular bones that reduce consumer appeal, opening new possibilities for breeding more marketable fish while deepening understanding of skeletal biology.
Nibbles: Cayman coconuts, Wild beans, Breeding Bambara, Aussie genebank, UAE law, EBI, Amazonian ag
- The Cayman Islands bets on a genebank of coconut diversity.
- The Alliance of Bioversity & CIAT’s genebank bets on growth cabinets to save picky wild bean.
- IITA bets on stakeholders to build a better Bambara groundnut. And its genebank, presumably.
- The Australian Seed Bank Partnership bets on, well, seeds.
- The UAE bets on a PGRFA law.
- Ethiopia bet on a national genebank 50 years ago.
- People have been betting on the chagra in the Amazon for 4,500 years.
Ube careful what you wish for
You know a crop has arrived when The Economist does a piece on it. Ube (Dioscorea alata), the purple yam long cherished in the Philippines, is indeed suddenly everywhere, and the newspaper for the global elite is all over it. From Starbucks drinks in Britain to specialty bakeries in Europe and North America, it has become the latest social-media-friendly food trend. Some commentators are already calling it “the new matcha.” Global demand is rising rapidly, and Filipino farmers are struggling to keep up.
This looks like the kind of success story we often hope for as agricultural biodiversity advocates: a neglected or underutilized crop finally finding big markets. Researchers are developing improved varieties, governments are increasing investment in research and development, and scientists are working on better propagation methods to overcome shortages of planting material. Some farmer groups have reportedly seen orders jump from hundreds of kilograms to tens of tonnes. What’s not to like?
Well, before we celebrate too loudly, it is worth remembering that similar “opportunity crops” have started on this road before. It can be a bumpy one.
The first challenge is biological. Ube is not an industrial commodity. It is seasonal, labor-intensive, relatively slow to mature, and constrained by shortages of high-quality planting material. Current efforts to develop improved varieties and rapid propagation techniques are responses to real bottlenecks, not merely opportunities.
The second problem is economic. Today’s enthusiasm is driven partly by novelty and social media visibility. Food history is littered with once-fashionable ingredients that enjoyed a brief boom before consumers moved on to the next trend. If ube is indeed the new matcha, what happens when the next matcha arrives?
Finally, there are legitimate concerns about diversity itself. Commercial success often narrows the genetic base of a crop as supply chains converge on a small number of elite varieties. Ironically, a boom can threaten the very diversity that made a crop valuable in the first place.
None of this means we should resist ube’s moment. On the contrary, it presents a rare opportunity to reward farmers, strengthen local value chains, and invest in conservation and breeding. But history suggests that the goal should not be to maximize production for a transient craze. It should be to use today’s demand to build a resilient and diverse ube sector that can survive after the craze fades.
Don’t just feed the boom. Try to avoid the bust. More tomato, less quinoa, you could say.
Papas bravas
Among the gems Jeremy has included in his latest Eat This Newsletter are an essay on the potato in Belarus and a visual guide to the peppers of the world. Very tasty.
Brainfood: Seeds through time
- Natufian sickle blades (ca. 15,000–11,700 cal. BP) reveal cereal cultivation ca. 4.5 millennia before domestication. Archaeological evidence from ancient sickle blades suggests that people were harvesting cereal seeds thousands of years before domesticated forms emerged, blurring the line between foraging and farming, and offering fresh insight into the long co-evolution of humans and crops.
- Teosinte alleles enhance nitrogen assimilation and seed protein in maize. Wild relatives continue to provide valuable genetic resources for the improvement of crop seeds.
- Modeling seed germination data to meet biodiversity conservation needs in the Mediterranean. Robust germination models can improve both restoration planning and ex situ conservation by predicting when and how seeds are most likely to establish.
- To grow or not to grow: questioning seed dormancy and thermal germination responses along elevational gradients in four plant taxa. Seed dormancy does not always follow predictable patterns across environmental gradients.
- Delayed Seed Germination as a Strategy to Cope With Environmental Stress and Disturbance. Seed dormancy follows a (fairly) predictable pattern when you look at stress and disturbance.
- Reconsidering how to dry orthodox seeds for improved ex situ conservation outcomes. Conventional wisdom about drying orthodox seeds before storage may deserve re-evaluation, and refining drying protocols could enhance long-term viability and strengthen the effectiveness of seed banks.
- Short periods dominate mast seeding across diverse tree species. A broad analysis of mast seeding reveals that many tree species synchronize seed production over relatively short recurring intervals rather than highly irregular cycles.