- Q&A with Susan Bragdon of Seeds for All on the importance of agrobiodiversity and small farmers.
- Going wild for finger millet in Kenya.
- There’s maybe a previously unknown variety of cacao.
- Brazilian germplasm collection data online.
- A very Fertile Crescentic view of agricultural origins.
- Antidote to above.
- Ft Collins USDA genebank in the (local) news.
Keeping up to date with data from CGN
Interested in new vegetable germplasm? The Centre for Genetic Resources, the Netherlands (CGN) has you covered.
CGN frequently adds new material to its collections and new information to its publicly available data. Via this page you can easily check what’s new!
This is the page to bookmark.
Remember that these data eventually find their way to the European genebank database, Eurisco, and thence to Genesys, which is your global gateway to germplasm collections, and thence to the Global Information System of the International Treaty. This will cover not just genebank collections, but eventually also in situ conserved material and the products of plant breeding using either of these.
Eat up Edible Memory this month
Jennifer Jordan’s Edible Memory: The Lure of Heirloom Tomatoes and Other Forgotten Foods can be downloaded free as an ebook from the University of Chicago Press website during October.
Sandra M. Gilbert, author of The Culinary Imagination: From Myth to Modernity
“Edible Memory is a compelling exploration of the lure and lore of foods that have become culinary ‘heirlooms,’ especially some kinds of tomatoes, but also apples, stone fruits, even leeks and turnips. A meticulous scholar and an incisive sociologist, Jordan writes with verve and wit throughout this beautifully nuanced study. Exploring the many varieties of culinary nostalgia, she avoids sentimentality while investigating our sometimes paradoxical yearnings for fruits and vegetables we may not even have eaten in our own lives and our curiously Proustian longings for (even) Jell-O molds and boxed cakes. Her book is an important contribution both to food studies and, more generally, to the history of taste.”
In the footsteps of M.S. Swaminathan
The M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation is looking for a new Executive Director.
MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) established in 1988 is a not-for-profit trust. MSSRF was envisioned and founded by Professor M S Swaminathan, agriculture scientist with proceeds from the First World Food Prize that he received in 1987. The Foundation aims to accelerate use of modern science for sustainable agricultural and rural development. MSSRF focuses specifically on tribal and rural communities with a pro-poor, pro-women and pro-nature approach. The Foundation applies appropriate science and technology options to address practical problems faced by rural populations in agriculture, food and nutrition.
Important work, important job.
Brainfood: Impact, Dietary guidelines, Diversity & diet, Wild cotton, Wild soybean, Italian rice & apples, Holstein genebank, Sugarcane evaluation, Quinoa boom, Bean landrace double, Brazilian fruits, Habitat restoration, Mixtures & pests
- Systematic review of the effects of agricultural interventions on food security in northern Ghana. The effects are minimal in the few cases where they have been measured.
- Food and nutrient gaps in rural Northern Ghana: Does production of smallholder farming households support adoption of food-based dietary guidelines? No, especially for vegetables, so another example of the above. Also, diversity of household production positively correlated with food and nutrient coverage but neither with children’s dietary diversity and nutrient adequacy.
- Farm-Level Agricultural Biodiversity in the Peruvian Andes Is Associated with Greater Odds of Women Achieving a Minimally Diverse and Micronutrient Adequate Diet. Associated.
- Natural Variation in Wild Gossypium Species as a Tool to Broaden the Genetic Base of Cultivated Cotton. Cotton needs an infusion of diversity.
- Wild Soybeans: An Opportunistic Resource for Soybean Improvement. As above, but time is running out because the wild relatives are often weedy.
- Evolutionary trends and phylogenetic association of key morphological traits in the Italian rice varietal landscape. Again, likely shrinking, but for different reasons.
- Genetic characterization of the apple germplasm collection in Central Italy: the value of local varieties. 25 duplicates among 175 accessions from 10 collections. How many are still in orchards?
- Value of the Dutch Holstein Friesian germplasm collection to increase genetic variability and improve genetic merit. More useful to increase genetic diversity than value.
- Identification and Evaluation of Resistance to Sugarcane Streak Mosaic Virus (SCSMV) and Sorghum Mosaic Virus (SrMV) in Excellent Sugarcane Innovation Germplasms in China. Some are more excellent than others.
- The quinoa boom in Peru: Will land competition threaten sustainability in one of the cradles of agriculture? Looks like it.
- Recovery of a common bean landrace (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) for commercial purposes. Spain’s “Caparrona de Monzón”, to be precise. Interesting, but surely a challenge to scale up. No fear of a Caparrona Boom, I suspect.
- The Nutritional Content of Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Landraces in Comparison to Modern Varieties. Some are better. No word on whether the above approach will be tried on these beans in Turkey.
- Fruits of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest: allying biodiversity conservation and food security. Plinia edulis looks like it might be worth a try, Campomanesia hirsuta maybe not so much.
- Restoring to the future: Environmental, cultural, and management trade‐offs in historical versus hybrid restoration of a highly modified ecosystem. Hybrid (native + exotic plants) is better than nothing.
- Pest suppression in cultivar mixtures is influenced by neighbor‐specific plant‐plant communication. Volatiles from one barley genotype can lead to aphid suppression on neighbours of a different genotype.