Category: Climate change

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Brainfood: CC & livelihoods, Landscape approaches, Seed system metrics, Grain traders, Cultivar adoption, WTP for African rice, Restoration networks

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Nibbles: IUCN report, Land Institute, Climate smart beer, BioLeft seeds, Cryo coral

  1. Big IUCN report says that biodiversity and agriculture are in conflict, they don’t really need to be, but it’s really complicated for them not to be. So that’s us all told.
  2. If only annual crops were perennial, for example, eh?
  3. If only we incorporated more sustainable agriculture in education, for example, eh? Apart from anything else we could still have beer. No word on the role of perennial barley though.
  4. If only improved seeds were open source, for example, eh?
  5. If only we could cryopreserve coral, for example, eh? Wait, what?
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Nibbles: China genebanks, African genebanks, PNG genebank, Opportunity crops, Bananocalypse, IRRI genebank, African Runner Peanut, Australian genebank, Agrobiodiversity, Navajo agriculture, Wayuu agriculture, COPs

  1. With remarkable regularity, China announces some impressive genebank thing. Like a catalog for 105 tropical crop genebanks. But where is it?
  2. On the other hand, we probably don’t hear enough about African genebanks, so this piece is very welcome.
  3. Or about genebanks in Papua New Guinea, for that matter.
  4. Have we heard enough about “opportunity crops” yet? No, probably not.
  5. We will never stop hearing about the “bananocalypse,” I suspect.
  6. Or about the IRRI genebank from Mike Jackson. Not that I mind.
  7. The latest on the African Runner Peanut, about which we have blogged before. Several times. Not that I mind.
  8. I will never tire of hearing about genebanks getting loads of money.
  9. I will also never tire of hearing about win-win outcomes for biodiversity and food production.
  10. The Navajo know all about that. And the Wayuu people in Guajira, Colombia for that matter.
  11. We will soon all be tired of hearing about all the various COPs, but for now let’s see what the Dutch genebank and, let’s see who else we have, ok, sure, why not, ESG investors — what do they have to say?
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Nibbles: CWR double, Banana threats, Banana collecting, Rice breeding, Cassava breeding, SADC livestock genebank, Community seedbank, Sunflower mapping, Restoration

  1. Why we need crop wild relatives.
  2. No, really, we need crop wild relatives.
  3. The banana is in trouble.
  4. Which is why we need to conserve banana wild relatives and landraces.
  5. Lots of wild relatives are conserved in the IRRI genebank mentioned in this Guardian article on breeding low glycemic index and high protein rice. Some of them may even have been used in this work. May look that up one day.
  6. I doubt that IITA used wild relatives in breeding these high quality cassava varieties, but there’s always a first time, and there may even be some in its genebank. I should probably look but I don’t have time for this rabbit hole today.
  7. And livestock get conserved in genebanks too, though not as much as crops. I’m really not sure how many livestock wild relatives are in the world’s genebanks, but my guess is not many.
  8. Farmers conserve crop (and livestock) diversity too, of course. And sometimes even their wild relatives.
  9. It’s amazing what can be done from space to figure out what farmers are growing. This is an example of sunflower in Ukraine, but one day we’ll even be able to locate crop wild relatives, I’m sure.
  10. To finish off, a reminder that we need conserved seed of wild species for more than just breeding: restoration too.