Brainfood: Pollinator evolution, Pollinator diversity, Livestock, Yak milk consumption, Poultry in situ conservation, Soil stress, Self-domestication, Natural history collections

Nibbles: Singapore genebank, Tianjin genebank, Food system transformation, ENCORE biodiversity tool, Italian olive troubles, Agroecology map, Indian millets

  1. Nice write-up of the Singapore Botanic Gardens Seed Bank, which opened back in 2019 to not much fanfare.
  2. The Tianjin Agricultural Germplasm Resources Bank has just opened, to much fanfare.
  3. The Global Alliance for the Future of Food has a report out on Beacons of Hope: Stories of Food Systems Transformation During COVID-19. All far downstream from genebanks, but crop diversity makes an appearance in the form of Rwanda’s Gardens for Health International, for example.
  4. The ENCORE tool, created by Natural Capital Finance Alliance and UNEP-WCMC, can help assess any potential risks to natural capital which may be caused by planned investments by financial institutions. Well, now there’s a biodiversity module. Where’s the agrobiodiversity module though?
  5. Speaking of natural capital, Italy’s olive harvest is threatened by more than that nasty Xylella disease.
  6. Is agroecology an answer to all the gloom and doom? I don’t know, but here’s a map of the experiences of people who think so.
  7. India definitely thinks millets are an answer.

Genebanks as force multipliers

The Center on Global Food and Agriculture has a report out called “Defining the Path to Zero Hunger in an Equitable World” which basically tries to add humanitarian assistance to the old food-climate-biodiversity nexus. Crop diversity is nowhere to be found among the “catalyzing ideas,” alas. However, one of those ideas is investing in “force multipliers,” and one of those multipliers is agricultural research and development. So I guess there’s an opening there for genebanks. But why do they have to be such a hard sell?

Ah but wait, I see other catalyzing ideas are “get the word out” and “articulate what we want.” Roger that.

Brainfood: 100 plant science questions, Biodiversity data, Cropland expansion double, CC & yields, Crop diversity & stability, Nutritious crops double, Feminist markets