- Exploring Convivial Conservation in Theory and Practice: Possibilities and Challenges for a Transformative Approach to Biodiversity Conservation. Conservation should be integrative, democratic and redistributive. Hard row to hoe.
- Emerging signals of declining forest resilience under climate change. Convivially or not, better conserve forests quickly.
- Adapting traditional industries to national park management: A conceptual framework and insights from two Chinese cases. Integrative and redistributive, but I’m not sure how democratic.
- Near- to long-term measures to stabilize global wheat supplies and food security. There’s a bunch of stuff that we can do in the short term, but in the end we’re going to need diverse, gender-equitable agro-ecosystems which are properly supported by investment in research. Sort of integrative, democratic and redistributive then, perhaps?
- From food price crisis to an equitable food system. Looks like the food system needs to be as convivial as conservation. If not more so.
- Trade and dietary preferences can determine micronutrient security in the United Kingdom. Going to be difficult to take back control of micronutrient security.
- Turning promise into practice: Crop biotechnology for increasing genetic diversity and climate resilience. Maybe biotech needs to be more convivial too.
- A conceptual framework for understanding the environmental impacts of ultra-processed foods and implications for sustainable food systems. Nothing convivial about ultra-processed foods, alas.
- Why food insecurity persists in sub-Saharan Africa: A review of existing evidence. Exports, basically. Looks like exports are really not very convivial.
- Crops in crises: Shocks shape smallholders’ diversification in rural Ethiopia. Farmers need continual access to both the informal and formal seed systems to mitigate risk, but poor farmers need more money to do so. Maybe link them up to export markets? No, wait…
- Traditional Agriculture and Food Sovereignty: Quilombola Knowledge and Management of Food Crops. Lots of conviviality, but not enough to fully mitigate risk.
- The role of international cooperative initiatives in financing biodiversity. Partnerships between state and a variety of non-state actors may just be an opportunity for more convivial conservation and food systems. But then I would say that.
Nibbles: Algal genebank, Baking, Distilling, Ft Collins genebank, Community genebanks, Trinidad genebank, Agriculture & climate change, Nigerian coconuts, Organic agriculture
- Saving an algal germplasm collection in the US.
- Saving ancient grains via baking in Israel and distilling in Minnesota.
- Saving seeds (and more) in a famous genebank in Ft Collins, Colorado.
- Saving seeds in community genebanks in Nepal.
- Saving seeds for the community in Trinidad & Tobago.
- Saving agriculture from climate change in Hainan. Someone tell India.
- Saving the Nigerian coconut sector.
- Saving organic agriculture from politicians.
Nibbles: Pacific genebank, IPBES report, New mangoes, British apples, Greek landraces, Fonio, Space seeds, Macadamia cryo
- New Zealand supports SPC regional crops and trees genebank in a big way.
- Some of those trees are wild species that contribute to food security, and more must be done to conserve them.
- Some trees are crops of course, like mangoes, and scientists are doing their bit for them in the Philippines.
- Wait, isn’t it too early for the usual BBC saving-the-apple story? Usually comes in the autumn.
- Who needs genebanks when you can inscribe landraces in a National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
- Maybe try it with fonio next?
- Or just send seeds into space?
- Maybe including macadamia, or is space not cold enough for them?
Nibbles: Livestock genebank, Purple grain, Traditional Hawaiian farming
- Call to set up a sheep genebank in Australia. Kinda surprised there isn’t one already, frankly.
- Bringing back purple wheat in the US. Spoiler alert: genebanks were involved.
- Going back to “organized chaos” in Hawaiian farming. There’s probably room for genebanks too, though.
Brainfood: Trade double, Organic farming, Food vs non-food, Wild plants, Wheat yields, CWR in S Africa, Gene editing, European seed law, Farm diversity
- Agricultural trade and its impacts on cropland use and the global loss of species habitat. Rich countries have a large biodiversity footprint outside their borders because they import a lot of agricultural products from areas where biodiversity is disappearing fast.
- International food trade benefits biodiversity and food security in low-income countries. Ah, but low-income, high biodiversity countries import a lot too. I really don’t know what to think about trade now. Nicely parsed by Emma Bryce.
- Biodiversity and yield trade-offs for organic farming. Biodiversity gain and yield loss balance each other out. Oh, come on scientists, would it kill you to give a definite answer?
- Crop harvests for direct food use insufficient to meet the UN’s food security goal. We should definitely use more cropland for actual human food. But that would probably not be good for exports, no? Uff.
- The hidden safety net: wild and semi-wild plant consumption and dietary diversity among women farmers in Southwestern Burkina Faso. Yeah, but who needs crops and imports anyway.
- Six decades of warming and drought in the world’s top wheat-producing countries offset the benefits of rising CO2 to yield. In any case, crops are in trouble.
- Planning complementary conservation of crop wild relative diversity in southern Africa. But CWR will save crops if only we can conserve them.
- Genome Editing for Sustainable Agriculture in Africa. Especially if we use the latest toys.
- Impact of the European Union’s Seed Legislation and Intellectual Property Rights on Crop Diversity. And have all the right policies in place.
- Farm-level production diversity and child and adolescent nutrition in rural sub-Saharan Africa: a multicountry, longitudinal study. But actually, it’s livestock we really need.