Luigi Guarino

May 10, 2021

Feed on a better food system

I missed WWF’s report Bending the Curve: The Restorative Power of Planet-Based Diets when it came out in October last year, but the interview with one of the authors, Brent Loken, on the Feed podcast was an excellent way to catch up.

Well worth listening to the whole thing, and indeed reading the report. I really like it when complexity and nuance are embraced, and silver bullets eschewed. Here’s a few take-aways to whet your, ahem, appetite:

Shift diets: it’s not that hard. Start by de-centering beef.
Reform national dietary guidelines.
Regulate marketing food to kids.
And, speaking of marketing, learn how to make healthy food sexier.
Cut waste.

May 10, 2021May 10, 2021

Brainfood: Filbert genome, Weed evaluation, Cocoa bugs, Grass genes, Perennial ag, Forage quality, Forest gardens, Protected areas, Anthropocene, Pollinators, Neolithic burials, House mice

The Corylus mandshurica genome provides insights into the evolution of Betulaceae genomes and hazelnut breeding. Yeah, but can it make Nutella better?
Widely assumed phenotypic associations in Cannabis sativa lack a shared genetic basis. More work needed. Much more work.
Dissecting industrial fermentations of fine flavour cocoa through metagenomic analysis. There’s a core of microorganisms in common even in very distant farms. Though I suspect the fun will be in the others.
Widespread lateral gene transfer among grasses. Especially in rhizomatous species. That should relieve the anxiety about genetic modification, right? Right.
An agroecological vision of perennial agriculture. Wait, what about those rhizomatous perennial grasses, though?
Comparison of benchtop and handheld near‐infrared spectroscopy devices to determine forage nutritive value. The handheld devices are just fine. How long before Alice asks Chris for some for the ILRI genebank? To test on rhizomatous grasses, of course.
Historical Indigenous Land-Use Explains Plant Functional Trait Diversity. Forest gardens in the Pacific NW still have more diversity 150 years after their indigenous managers were forced off them.
The minimum land area requiring conservation attention to safeguard biodiversity. 44% of terrestrial area, home to 1.8 billion people. Presumably including a lot of indigenous managers.
People have shaped most of terrestrial nature for at least 12,000 years. 75% of terrestrial area, in fact.
Protection of honeybees and other pollinators: one global study. Focus on habitat loss and pesticides. And more monitoring.
A sexual division of labour at the start of agriculture? A multi-proxy comparison through grave good stone tool technological and use-wear analysis. Guess which gender was buried with tools associated with interpersonal violence.
Origins of house mice in ecological niches created by settled hunter-gatherers in the Levant 15,000 y ago. Well, hence the name, right?
Commentary: Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future. Don’t warn. Resist.

May 5, 2021

Nibbles: Emissions, Anthromes, S Asian farming origins, Old seeds, Chestnut, Canadian heirlooms, ABS newsletter

Food contributes 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions.
How we got to the above.
And a focus on how farming started in South Asia in particular.
A long-term seed experiment carries on.
Another chapter in the story of the comeback of the American chestnut?
Want to help a heirloom make a comeback?
There’s a newsletter on the law and policy behind all this stuff.

May 4, 2021May 4, 2021

How to do Farmers’ Rights

Are you interested in Farmers’ Rights? If so, the Plant Treaty has an inventory for you.

The Inventory of national measures that may be adopted, best practices and lessons learned from the realization of Farmers’ Rights, as set out in Article 9 of the International Treaty (the Inventory), was developed by the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Farmers’ Rights, based on the mandate it received from the Governing Body at its Seventh Session.

In preparation for the Inventory, the Governing Body invited Contracting Parties and relevant stakeholders, especially farmers’ organizations, to submit views, experiences and best practices as examples for the national implementation of Article 9 of the International Treaty. The Inventory thus relies on the submissions received from the Contracting Parties and stakeholders. The focus is on measures and practices that have been or are in the process of being implemented.

LATER: It occurs to me not all readers might know what Farmers’ Rights are. It’s remarkably difficult to get a definition, but maybe this comes closest:

Farmers’ Rights consist of the customary rights of farmers to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed and propagating material, their rights to be recognized, rewarded and supported for their contribution to the global pool of genetic resources as well as to the development of commercial varieties of plants, and to participate in decision making on issues related to crop genetic resources.

Farmers’ Rights are addressed in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, but are not defined there.

May 3, 2021

Is Big Agriculture Best?

Jeremy’s latest newsletter out, and he has a challenge for you.

Bursting my own self-reinforcing bubble, as, in fact, I often do, I forced myself to read this fascinating article in Foreign Policy. If only they had phrased the headline as a question – Is Big Agriculture Best? – it would have met my expectations even more perfectly. Let’s just say that I disagree, but not entirely.

My biggest problem with the piece is what it omits on the negative side, and those are well-enough known that in all honesty I cannot be bothered to go through with a point by point rebuttal. And yet, there is precisely one conclusion in the piece with which I wholeheartedly agree.

See if you can find it. Answers by email, please. No prizes though.