- Bringing access and benefit sharing into the digital age. One thing needed: a Multi‐stakeholder Committee on the Governance of Digital Sequence Information. Well that was easy.
- A contract‐law analyses of the SMTA of the Plant Treaty: Can it work as a binding contract? Three things: the SMTA needs to be valid, binding and enforceable. Which it isn’t now, apparently.
- Recent Large-Scale Genotyping and Phenotyping of Plant Genetic Resources of Vegetatively Propagated Crops. Five things: standardized SSR loci, GBS-derived SNPs, SNP arrays, high-throughput phenotyping system, GWAS.
- “Breaking through the 40% adoption ceiling: Mind the seed system gaps.” A perspective on seed systems research for development in One CGIAR. Four things: capture the demand characteristics of farmers, identify effective seed delivery pathways, ensure seed health and stopping the spread of disease, effective policies and regulation. I guess this is where the Toolkit comes in.
- Africa’s evolving vegetable seed sector: status, policy options and lessons from Asia. Four things: technical capacity, regulations, extension, marketing. Well, yeah.
- The inflated significance of neutral genetic diversity in conservation genetics. Three things: functional genetic diversity, demographic history, and ecological relationships.
- Intraspecific trait variation in plants: a renewed focus on its role in ecological processes. Three things: report individual replicates and population means, investigate mechanisms that affect ITVs, studies that span sub-disciplines (see paper above).
- A scoping review of feed interventions and livelihoods of small-scale livestock keepers. Three things: consider absorptive capacity of livestock keepers and extensionists, focus on semi-commercial sector, consider resource requirements of feed options. It’s all in the podcast. Remarkable similarity with the vegetables thing above, eh?
- Induced Polyploidy: A Tool for Forage Species Improvement. Two things. Thanks, colchicine.
- Varietal selection in marginal agroecological niches and cultural landscapes: the case of rice in the Togo Hills. Three things: participation, low-input conditions, landraces.
- Three founding ancestral genomes involved in the origin of sugarcane. A, B and C.
- “Essential non‐essentials”: COVID‐19 policy missteps in Nigeria rooted in persistent myths about African food supply chains. Five things: imports are not central to food security, rural families buy a lot of food, small farmers access markets after all, small & medium enterprises are hidden but not missing, domestic distribution is important.
- What Should Farmers’ Rights Look Like? The Possible Substance of a Right. 64 things.
- The one hundred tree species prioritized for planting in the tropics and subtropics as indicated by database mining. Bingo!
Brainfood: Green Revolution, Hybrid wheat, Pacific PGRFA, Temperate maize, Maize seed, Yemeni coffee, Nutrition agriculture, Vanilla breeding, Cultivar mixture, Meta-analysis, Algerian forages
- Health Impacts of the Green Revolution: Evidence from 600,000 births across the Developing World. Modern varieties reduced infant mortality from 18% to 12-15% across 21,604 locations in 37 developing countries between 1961–2000.
- Wide adaptation of Green Revolution wheat: International roots and the Indian context of a new plant breeding ideal, 1960–1970. Thank goodness for photoperiod insensitivity, eh?
- The genetic basis of cytoplasmic male sterility and fertility restoration in wheat. Does this mean hybrid wheat is the next revolution?
- Unlocking the inherent potential of plant genetic resources: food security and climate adaptation strategy in Fiji and the Pacific. The Pacific is still waiting for its revolution.
- A worldwide maize panel revealed new genetic variation for cold tolerance. Inbreds from Minnesota and Spain could spearhead a temperate maize revolution.
- Seed longevity of maize conserved under germplasm bank conditions for up to 60 years. Keep those Minnesotan and Spanish inbreds cold, whatever you do.
- Unveiling a unique genetic diversity of cultivated Coffea arabica L. in its main domestication center: Yemen. Unique Yemeni material could spearhead a coffee revolution. How to store those seeds, though?
- Household behaviour and nutrition-sensitive agricultural practices: Experiences of smallholder farmers in Northern West Bengal, India. Maybe what’s needed is a revolution in women’s empowerment.
- The beautiful hills: half a century of vanilla (Vanilla planifolia Jacks. ex Andrews) breeding in Madagascar. There was a vanilla revolution in Madagascar in the 50s and nobody knows about it.
- The potential of cultivar mixtures to reduce fungicide input and mitigate fungicide resistance development. The cultivar mixture revolution is still to come.
- Dynamic meta-analysis: a method of using global evidence for local decision making. The tender green shoots of a data-driven revolution?
- Molecular characterization of Algerian populations of cocksfoot and tall fescue: Ploidy level determination and genetic diversity analysis. I just like the word cocksfoot.
Brainfood: Post 2020 indicators double, Protected areas, Infraspecific variation, SeedExtractor, Processing, Regenerating spuds, Gut microbiota, Plant microbiome, Citrus greening, Rusts never sleep, Bee competition, Pollinator decline, Genomic selection, Pig diversity
- An analysis of genetic diversity actions, indicators and targets in 114 National Reports to the Convention on Biological Diversity. It is not well done, but the authors were surprised to see it done at all.
- Essential indicators for measuring site‐based conservation effectiveness in the post‐2020 global biodiversity framework. Remote sensing will save us. But see above.
- Pervasive cropland in protected areas highlight trade-offs between conservation and food security. Remote sensing (et al.) in action.
- Conserving intraspecific variation for nature’s contributions to people. Well, yeah. But can remote sensing help?
- SeedExtractor: An Open-Source GUI for Seed Image Analysis. Somebody mention intraspecific variation? Here’s a way to cope with seed variation.
- The processed food revolution in African food systems and the double burden of malnutrition. There’s bad processing, and good processing, even the bad processing has some upsides, but really we should try to have only good processing.
- Expression of internal reproductive barriers in a germplasm bank accession of the wild potato Solanum chacoense Bitter in three ex situ regeneration cycles. Ne < N.
- Effects of Iron and Zinc Biofortified Foods on Gut Microbiota In Vivo (Gallus gallus): A Systematic Review. Biofortified foods are good for gut health. In chickens.
- Experimental evidence of microbial inheritance in plants and transmission routes from seed to phyllosphere and root. Plants get their microbiome from the seeds whence they came, not just the environment.
- A stable antimicrobial peptide with dual functions of treating and preventing citrus Huanglongbing. From a wild relative, natch.
- Wheat rust epidemics damage Ethiopian wheat production: A decade of field disease surveillance reveals national-scale trends in past outbreaks. Boom-and-bust is alive and well.
- Honey bee hives decrease wild bee abundance, species richness, and fruit count on farms regardless of wildflower strips. And the good news just keeps on coming.
- Pollination strategies in the face of pollinator decline. The really good news is that plants may adapt to pollinator decline.
- Genomic Selection for Any Dairy Breeding Program via Optimized Investment in Phenotyping and Genotyping. You don’t need more money, you just need to reallocate some of the phenotyping money to genotyping, genotypers say.
- Runs of homozygosity provide a genome landscape picture of inbreeding and genetic history of European autochthonous and commercial pig breeds. Local breeds around Europe have similar genetic structures.
Brainfood: Extra livestock edition
- Resilience and livestock adaptations to demographic growth and technological change: A diachronic perspective from the Late Bronze Age to Late Antiquity in NE Iberia. The changing balance between sheep, cattle and pigs through time was driven by socio-economics more than environment.
- Heat stress will detrimentally impact future livestock production in East Africa. 4-19% of livestock production will have more heat to cope with.
- Pastoralism in the highest peaks: Role of the traditional grazing systems in maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem function in the alpine Himalaya. A ban on grazing would be counter-productive.
- The evolving interface between pastoralism and uncertainty : reflecting on cases from three continents. Adaptive herd management, livelihood mosaics, persisting mobility, reticular territories, and articulated social networks have been enough, but for how long more?
- Redefinition of the Mora Romagnola Pig Breed Herd Book Standard Based on DNA Markers Useful to Authenticate Its “Mono-Breed” Products: An Example of Sustainable Conservation of a Livestock Genetic Resource. Fraudsters beware.
- Estimating the genetic diversity of Pacific salmon and trout using multigene eDNA metabarcoding. DNA was recovered from the water, for pity’s sake.
Brainfood: Rewilding, Neotropical domestication, Teosinte hybrids, Milpa, Wild grapes, Wild banana, Wild rice, European landrace trifecta, Ethiopian coffee double, Eco-anger
- Agricultural wilding: rewilding for agricultural landscapes through an increase in wild productive systems. But would it be sparing or sharing?
- Disentangling Domestication from Food Production Systems in the Neotropics. “Wild” is a contested concept in the Neotropics anyway.
- Evidence for Multiple Teosinte Hybrid Zones in Central Mexico. Maize systems are already pretty wild in Mexico.
- Maize intercropping in the milpa system. Diversity, extent and importance for nutritional security in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. And they’re doing pretty well, thank you very much.
- Extensive introgression among North American wild grapes (Vitis) fuels biotic and abiotic adaptation. Plenty of wilding in American grapevines too.
- Conservation status assessment of banana crop wild relatives using species distribution modelling. There’s a danger of banana de-wilding.
- A route to de novo domestication of wild allotetraploid rice. The upside of dewilding.
- Landrace added value and accessibility in Europe: what a collection of case studies tells us. Landraces can maybe help with that rewilding of agriculture in Europe, as they are mostly adapted to marginal, low-input systems.
- The Analysis of Italian Plant Agrobiodiversity Databases Reveals That Hilly and Sub-Mountain Areas Are Hotspots of Herbaceous Landraces. Like I said, landraces can help.
- Locally Adapted and Organically Grown Landrace and Ancient Spring Cereals—A Unique Source of Minerals in the Human Diet. Plus they’re good for you.
- Not my cup of coffee: Farmers’ preferences for coffee variety traits – Lessons for crop breeding in the age of climate change. Which is not to say landraces don’t need improvement every now and then.
- The potential for income improvement and biodiversity conservation via specialty coffee in Ethiopia. But in the end, it’s about the value added.
- From anger to action: Differential impacts of eco-anxiety, eco-depression, and eco-anger on climate action and wellbeing. Does any of the above make you angry? Good!