- Do Pharaohs’ cattle still graze the Nile Valley? Genetic characterization of the Egyptian Baladi cattle breed. Maybe.
- Lessons on textile history and fibre durability from a 4,000-year-old Egyptian flax yarn. Pharaohs’ flax still being woven though.
- Wild cereal grain consumption among Early Holocene foragers of the Balkans predates the arrival of agriculture. Which made it easier to adopt cultigens when farmers arrived.
- The origins and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes. Horses from the lower Volga-Don spread all over Eurasia starting around 2000 BC along with equestrian material culture.
- The Japanese wolf is most closely related to modern dogs and its ancestral genome has been widely inherited by dogs throughout East Eurasia. Kinda too bad it’s extinct, but maybe it can be reconstructed?
- Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene sites in the montane forests of New Guinea yield early record of cassowary hunting and egg harvesting. Amazing. From looking at eggshells.
- Hallstatt miners consumed blue cheese and beer during the Iron Age and retained a non-Westernized gut microbiome until the Baroque period. Amazing. From looking at, well, there’s no easy way of saying it, paleofeces.
Brainfood: RICA, AEGIS, CWR, Agrosavia, DSI, CRISPR, Tradition, SNS, Stability, Birds, Sparing, Genetic erosion
- RICA: A rice crop calendar for Asia based on MODIS multi year data. RiceAtlas validated. Still trying to figure out how to mash it up with genebank accession locality data though. Any GIS geniuses out there to help me?
- AEGIS, the Virtual European Genebank: Why It Is Such a Good Idea, Why It Is Not Working and How It Could Be Improved. Certify genebanks, that’s how.
- Reap the crop wild relatives for breeding future crops. Needs good data and certified genebanks. Plus gene editing.
- Opportunities and Challenges to Improve a Public Research Program in Plant Breeding and Enhance Underutilized Plant Genetic Resources in the Tropics. Needs better social networking. Plus better data and certified genebanks, presumably.
- From seed to sequence: Dematerialization and the battle to (re)define genetic resources. Ah yes, data.
- Current Advancements and Limitations of Gene Editing in Orphan Crops. Ah yes, gene editing.
- Revitalizing Traditional Agricultural Practices: Conscious Efforts to Create a More Satisfying Culture. Meanwhile, in Sweden…
- Sacred natural sites and biodiversity conservation: a systematic review. Of course sacred sites are good for biodiversity. But it’s always good to have the data.
- Global relationships between crop diversity and nutritional stability. Sacred sites are not enough, alas.
- Preserving local biodiversity through crop diversification. Crop diversity is even good for birds…
- Concentrating vs. spreading our footprint: how to meet humanity’s needs at least cost to nature. …but, overall intensification of agriculture coupled with sparing land for conservation (maybe even in sacred sites) is the best approach for wildlife. And humanity, for that matter. So, back to needing better data from certified genebanks, so we can get that intensification done, right?
- Quantifying the scale of genetic diversity extinction in the Anthropocene. Right!
Brainfood: Coconut cloning, Apricot diversity, European ag double, Diet seasonality, Farm size, Ethiopian seeds, Biocultural diversity, Aquatic food, Grasslands, Pollinator mixtures
- Development of the first axillary in vitro shoot multiplication protocol for coconut palms. Cloning the tree of life, really fast.
- Frequent germplasm exchanges drive the high genetic diversity of Chinese-cultivated common apricot germplasm. Looking forward to the same being said about coconut.
- Crop diversity effects on temporal agricultural production stability across European regions. The effects are good.
- Are agricultural sustainability and resilience complementary notions? Evidence from the North European agriculture. They are indeed, but what about stability though?
- Seasonal variability of women’s dietary diversity and food provisioning: a cohort study in rural Burkina Faso. Do Europe now.
- The “Sweet Spot” in the Middle: Why Do Mid-Scale Farms Adopt Diversification Practices at Higher Rates? Spoiler alert: it’s got less to do with farm size than with access to resources and markets. At least for Californian lettuce farmers.
- Politics of seeds in Ethiopia’s agricultural transformation: pathways to seed system development. The Ethiopian seed system needs diversification just as much as Californian lettuce farmers.
- Biocultural Diversity for Food System Transformation Under Global Environmental Change. What we all need is biocultural diversity.
- Harnessing the diversity of small-scale actors is key to the future of aquatic food systems. Yes, all of us, whether in mountains or by the sea.
- Combatting global grassland degradation. It may be stretching a point, but biocultural diversity may also be a useful lens through which to look at grassland restoration and sustainable management. But then I would say that.
- Supporting wild pollinators in agricultural landscapes through targeted legume mixtures. Yeah, let’s not forget the pollinators while we’re at it.
Brainfood: Cola trade, Amalfi terraces, Satoyama value, Burkinabe cattle, Tree planting, Chickpea adoption, Varietal diversification, Wheat diversity, Maize adaptation, Stress breeding, Root & tubers, Cropping data
- Evidence of an Eleventh-Century AD Cola Nitida Trade into the Middle Niger Region. Before then, there was not much trade between the savannah and forest zones of West Africa, which is kind of remarkable.
- Risk factors and plant management activities for the terraced agricultural systems on the Amalfi coast (Italy): an interdisciplinary approach. The terrace walls need agriculture just as much as agriculture needs the walls. Had me wondering whether those terraces were there when the cola trade started up in West Africa.
- Nexus of the awareness of ecosystem services as a “public-benefit value” and “utility value for consumption”: an economic evaluation of the agricultural culture of Satoyama in Japan. Ecosystem services are hard to sell. Probably in Amalfi too, I bet.
- Values and Beliefs That Shape Cattle Breeding in Southwestern Burkina Faso. Community-based breeding programmes need trusted leadership. Don’t we all.
- Limited effects of tree planting on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods in Northern India. Decades of tree planting wasted. If only there had been better leadership.
- Unplanned but well prepared: A reinterpreted success story of international agricultural research, and its implications. Yeah, but even when an intervention is a success, as in this case, the reasons are beyond the control of researchers. The lesson: plan for the unplannable…
- Smallholder farmer engagement in citizen science for varietal diversification enhances adaptive capacity and productivity in Bihar, India. …and bet on diversity, of course…
- Introducing Beneficial Alleles from Plant Genetic Resources into the Wheat Germplasm. …like wheat breeders have been doing…
- A B73 x Palomero Toluqueño mapping population reveals local adaptation in Mexican highland maize. …and maize farmers too for that matter.
- Developing climate-resilient crops: improving plant tolerance to stress combination. And the need for diversity is only going to increase.
- Suitability of root, tuber, and banana crops in Central Africa can be favoured under future climates. I wouldn’t plan on it though…
- A review of global gridded cropping system data products. …but it’s good to finally know how all the different products that can be used to make these predictions stack up against each other.
Brainfood: Commons edition
- Seeds of resilience: the contribution of commons-based plant breeding and seed production to the social-ecological resilience of the agricultural sector. A seed production commons is good for agroecology and resilience. At least in the German-speaking vegetable sector. Yeah, but give them an inch…
- Crop Diversity Management System Commons: Revisiting the Role of Genebanks in the Network of Crop Diversity Actors. …and they’ll take a mile.
- Changing patterns in genebank acquisitions of crop genetic materials: An analysis of global policy drivers and potential consequences. Maybe it would be good if they took that mile.
- Seeds as natural capital. This is the mile we’re talking about. It’s worth fighting for.
- A Critical Review of the Current Global Ex Situ Conservation System for Plant Agrobiodiversity. II. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Current System and Recommendations for Its Improvement. It has become a really complicated mile.
- Uses and benefits of digital sequence information from plant genetic resources: Lessons learnt from botanical collections. And this makes it even more complicated.
- Impact of climate change on biodiversity and food security: a global perspective—a review article. Yeah, but look what happens if we don’t do something.
- Agrobiodiversity Index scores show agrobiodiversity is underutilized in national food systems. And we’re certainly not doing enough.
- Endangered Wild Crop Relatives of the Fertile Crescent. See what I mean?
- Crop diversity is associated with higher child diet diversity in Ethiopia, particularly among low-income households, but not in Vietnam. Sure, I know it’s complicated…
- Insights into the genetic basis of the pre-breeding potato clones developed at the Julius Kühn Institute for high and durable late blight resistance. …but just look what’s possible with a little effort…
- Spatiotemporal seed transfer zones as an efficient restoration strategy in response to climate change. …and a little thinking. Well, a lot of effort and thinking.
- Current Advancements and Limitations of Gene Editing in Orphan Crops. And on top of all that, we have this to look forward to.
- Inactivation of the germacrene A synthase genes by CRISPR/Cas9 eliminates the biosynthesis of sesquiterpene lactones in Cichorium intybus L. Well actually it’s already here.
- Living standards shape individual attitudes on genetically modified food around the world. Maybe if they were in a commons? Wait, isn’t this where we started?
- Waive CRISPR patents to meet food needs in low-income countries. It does look like it.