- The industrial sliced loaf as racist fantasy.
- Bill Gates talks dirty. About cassava, settle down.
- Where the wild things are is where the languages are, but why? And where are they endangered?
- This new Indian wild banana is probably a bit endangered.
- The past may be a foreign country, but they got Street View there too.
- Blockbuster rice in India. (But how energy-efficient is it?)
- And potentially blockbuster livestock breeds in Kenya.
- China goes GMO. Which of these?
- Maybe they should read this vision for organic farming? You know, just for completeness?
- Have a food adventure! Just perhaps not in China.
- FAO and National Geographic have a food security adventure together. For more stuff like this, no doubt…
- Eat more plants, and ditch the junk food. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Ok, for the more complicated, nerdy approach, there’s always fancy indicators.
- Ethiopia’s community seed banks.
- I bet there are some in Zimbabwe…
- African Development Bank makes a bet on agroforestry. Maybe health is why? There’s more that one reason…
- Gotta be strategic with your legume collecting.
- Want conservation science to translate into impact? Don’t publish behind a paywall.
- CIMMYT earns its keep.
- Build a better apple, and you won’t be able to keep the journalists away.
Brainfood: Tea cores, Amazonian domestication, Sicilian remedies, Odisha wild veggies, Insect biomass, Energy crops, Adoption, Field size, Rye diversity, Crab breeding
- Worldwide core collections of tea (Camellia sinensis) based on SSR markers. From 788 to 192 doesn’t seem like a great deal.
- Crop Domestication in the Amazon. The first arrivals were not just hunter-gatherers.
- Plant genetic resources and traditional knowledge on medicinal use of wild shrub and herbaceous plant species in the Etna Regional Park (Eastern Sicily, Italy). 71 wild species are used for medicine, but the properties of most are known by only a few informants.
- Traditional knowledge on wild edible plants as livelihood food in Odisha, India. 86 wild species are eaten. No word on the pattern of distribution of knowledge, at least in the abstract.
- Insects in the human food chain: global status and opportunities. The real potential is in animal feed production.
- Energy crops: Prospects in the context of sustainable agriculture. They have a role in Europe to reduce effects of climate change while supporting food security and preserving the environment, but most are in early stages of domestication, and we’ll need more efficient enzymatic systems for the conversion of cellulose, and the development of multiple products.
- Are there systematic gender differences in the adoption of sustainable agricultural intensification practices? Evidence from Kenya. Not for improved seeds, apparently.
- A contemporary decennial global Landsat sample of changing agricultural field sizes. Nine hotspots of field size change, driven by different factors, and not all in same direction. I wonder if you can use this as a proxy for levels of agricultural biodiversity?
- Genome-wide characterization of genetic diversity and population structure in Secale. Limited diversity in improved material, and no structure. Need those genebanks.
- Comparison of the culture performance and profitability of wild-caught and captive pond-reared Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis) juveniles reared in grow-out ponds: Implications for seed selection and genetic selection programs. Wild is best. For now.
Nibbles: Fossil biodiversity, Culture & health, Cicer drought experiment, Endangered fish, Wheat hydridization, Food aid, Ag trade double, Sustainable diets, Fermentation book
- The Global Fossil Record. Visualized. Not agricultural, but couldn’t resist it.
- Malnutrition? It’s the culture, stupid.
- Check out the world’s largest chickpea drought trial.
- Overfishing the Amazon.
- Ah, so that’s how wheat did it!
- Food aid can support sustainable livelihoods too.
- Soon, most crop production will go to feed China’s pigs. And you’ll be able to follow that on FAOStat’s interactive thingie on agricultural tradeflows.
- But it can’t possibly be good for sustainable diets, can it?
- New book on fermentation. Never enough of those.
Brainfood: Azeri grapes, Biodiversity & ecoservices, Ivorian melons, Omani chickens, Insecticides & pollinators, Czech wild wheat, African yams, Livestock breeding, Natural selection, Bean proteins
- Biodiversity and breeding of grapes: a study in Azerbaijan. Long history, 2 main wild types, 600 cultivated varieties, 100 of them threatened.
- Linkages between biodiversity attributes and ecosystem services: A systematic review. Mainly, but not exclusively, positive. Always complicated.
- Genetic relationships among accessions of African indigenous melons (Cucumis melo L. ssp. agrestis) using AFLP markers. Vegetable and soup thickener types separate genetically.
- From India to Africa across Arabia: An mtDNA assessment of the origins and dispersal of chicken around the Indian Ocean Rim. Arabian chickens come from India, Somali chickens from SE Asia.
- A restatement of the natural science evidence base concerning neonicotinoid insecticides and insect pollinators.. Here’s the data. Make up your own mind.
- Aegilops conservation and collection evaluation in the Czech Republic. 1 species in situ, 21 ex situ.
- Next-generation sequencing based genotyping, cytometry and phenotyping for understanding diversity and evolution of guinea yams. Both wild and cultivated species form distinct groups, except for Dioscorea rotundata, which is a mishmash of stuff.
- Issues and concerns in smallholder livestock genetic improvement programs in Africa. Got to select for multiple uses under less-than-ideal conditions. Not easy.
- Exploring natural selection to guide breeding for agriculture. Survival in the wild is not the same as performance in a cultivated field, but understanding the basis of adaptation can still help in breeding.
- Evaluating Two-Dimensional Electrophoresis Profiles of the Protein Phaseolin as Markers of Genetic Differentiation and Seed Protein Quality in Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.). Back to the future. Who needs DNA when you have proteins.
Nibbles: Custodian farmers, Farming wild species, Museum of Agriculture, GMO maize in Mexico, Organic metareview, Boron tolerance, Date tomato, Cultivated Plant Taxonomy Newsletter, Barcoding Welsh honey
- First, find your custodian farmers.
- Sure, they can farm wild species too.
- Then, get them to produce something cool, sell it, and use the money to preserve some nearby temples.
- Oh yeah, but better make sure there’s no GMOs around.
- Organic helps. No, really.
- Ok, so maybe you have to help them out by breeding for higher boron tolerance or something.
- Something like tomatoes that don’t rot. And in French, but with photo.
- Make sure the taxonomy is right, though.
- And if in doubt, use barcoding.