- Remember the book on ancient Mesopotamian cookery in the last Nibbles? Ok well here’s a website on Vegetable Oils And Animal Fats In Early Urban Societies Of Syro-Mesopotamia. Esoteric? Moi?
- To come back down to earth, you could always read this hot take on the AGRA rebranding.
- Couldn’t be more down to earth than community seedbanks, aka seed libraries.
- The seeds of Dipteryx odorata will make your head float.
- The latest news from the Musa Germplasm Information System may float your boat. It did mine. But I’m into esoterica, didn’t you know?
- Nothing esoteric about wild peanuts any more.
Nibbles: Trevor Williams, ICRISAT genebank, Irish seedbank, Domestication video, COP27 genebank webinar, Pasturelands, Big Food report, Mesopotamian cooking
- The late Prof. Trevor Williams, one of the pioneers of genebanking, in the news.
- The President of Niger visits a genebank, makes the news.
- Irish seedbanking in the news.
- Dr Mark Chapman on how to study domestication using seeds in genebanks.
- COP27 webinar on using seeds in genebanks for climate change adaptation.
- Pasturelands: sometimes genebanks are not enough. Though even then I bet they can help.
- Big Food still not doing much to support genebanks, despite reports such as this.
- A book on ancient Mesopotamian cooking. Who can think of the best link to genebanks?
Nibbles: New cassava, Community seedbank double, Rwandan beans, Knotweed et al., Seed systems, Adam Alexander, Uruguay genebank, Kelp biobank
- There’s a new cassava in town in Kenya.
- I wonder if it will end up in a community “seed” bank.
- …because they swear by them in Zimbabwe.
- Cassava is not the only American crops that’s important in parts of Africa: the cultural appropriation of beans in Rwanda.
- Some American crops didn’t make it very far out of America.
- Be it beans, cassava or sump/knotweed, what’s needed is a Quality-Declared Seed (QDS) system. Right?
- Well you also need someone to go around collecting the stuff in the first place.
- But don’t forget to back everything up in Svalbard, like Uruguay is doing.
- Well maybe not everything.
Nibbles: Old olive, Silphion, Heirloom watermelon, Calabrian chili, ICARDA genebank, Jamaica genebank, Tamil community seedbank, Forestry seeds
- Really old olive tree in the gardens of the mosque-cathedral of Cordoba is a lost variety.
- Long extinct medicinal spice plant not extinct after all?
- The next nearly extinct heirloom on our list is a watermelon from Virginia. Who knows, it may originally have been grown in Cordoba or Cyrenaica…
- And moving in the opposite direction, a really hot Calabrian chili pepper beats the heat.
- The ICARDA genebank is trying to find stuff that will beat the heat too.
- Jamaica is looking to beat the heat by establishing some new genebanks.
- Tamil Nadu going the community seedbank route, and why not? Jamaica please take note.
- An alliance of forestry outfits is pushing for a global seedbank infrastructure to support woodland restoration. Nothing if not ambitious. And much needed.
Brainfood: GIAHS, Austronesian ag, Neolithic Scotland, Livestock origins, Iroquoia maize, Maya drought, Agave diversity, Coffee diversity, Breadfruit cultivation
- Agricultural heritage systems and agrobiodiversity. FAO’s Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) work just fine.
- A northern Chinese origin of Austronesian agriculture: new evidence on traditional Formosan cereals. The precursors of the Austronesians took foxtail millet, broomcorn millet and rice to Taiwan from around Shandong in northeastern China in the second half of the 4th millennium BCE. That was quite a globally important agricultural heritage system (note lower case) in its day.
- Neolithic culinary traditions revealed by cereal, milk and meat lipids in pottery from Scottish crannogs. At roughly the same time as the above, farmers in Scotland were eating a gruel made of wheat and milk. Maybe not so globally important, but still.
- Epipalaeolithic animal tending to Neolithic herding at Abu Hureyra, Syria (12,800–7,800 calBP): Deciphering dung spherulites. That wheat and milk came from far away and long ago. In fact, maybe 2000 years longer ago than is usually thought.
- Tracing Maize History in Northern Iroquoia Through Radiocarbon Date Summed Probability Distributions. Maize really took off in NY/Ontario/Quebec between 1200 and 1450 AD.
- Drought-Induced Civil Conflict Among the Ancient Maya. Towards the end of the above period there was real strife in the Maya lands, but also local resilience. Makes you wonder whether whatever was happening among the Iroquois and Maya was somehow connected.
- Genomic and Morphological Differentiation of Spirit Producing Agave angustifolia Traditional Landraces Cultivated in Jalisco, Mexico. Whatever happened in Mesoamerica 600 years ago, Indigenous knowledge of agave diversity survived.
- Vernacular Names and Genetics of Cultivated Coffee (Coffea arabica) in Yemen. Indigenous knowledge of coffee diversity doesn’t correspond with genetic data in this globally significant agricultural heritage system.
- Advanced and emerging agricultural innovations for securing food, climate and ecosystems in Moroccan oasis. Even globally important agricultural heritage systems need innovation.
- Potential of breadfruit cultivation to contribute to climate-resilient low latitude food systems. Breadfruit can be important globally, not just in its current agricultural heritage system.