Brainfood: NbS, Intercropping, Sparing, Mixtures, Intensification, Shifting cultivation, Mexican wild foods, Chinese NUS, Andean crops, South African indigenous foods, Uganda community seedbanks

Nibbles: Mugumu, Gates, Fixation, OSA, USDA, Panicum, Digitaria, Britgrub, Wheat, ICRISAT, Svalbard

  1. Blog post on the importance of the mugumu tree in Kikuyu culture.
  2. Alas, no sign of mugumu trees on the Kenyan farm visited by Bill Gates recently. But there were chickens, drought-tolerant maize and mobile phones…
  3. …and there may soon be crops engineered for nitrogen fixation too, if his foundation’s project with the University of Cambridge comes through.
  4. Speaking of maize, here’s a nice illustrated story of how the Organic Seed Alliance is helping farmers grow their own tortilla corn in the Pacific Northwest.
  5. To generalize and contextualize the above, read this USDA e-book on plant collections and climate change.
  6. Dr Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute just got a grant to study broomcorn millet domestication and dispersal in Central Asia. There may be lessons for present-day adaptation to climate change, says the blurb.
  7. There are probably lessons about adaptation to climate change also to be had from Kew’s work on fonio and other traditional crops in Guinea.
  8. I wonder if Kew boffins are also working on bere, perry and other endangered British foods though.
  9. It’s always nice to see someone first learn about genebanks, and how they can help with the whole climate change thing.
  10. Meanwhile, in India, ICRISAT gets a stamp, which however doesn’t look very much like India or ICRISAT to me. Plenty of broomcorn millet in its genebank, by the way.
  11. Plenty of seeds from the ICRISAT genebank in Svalbard, as Asmund Asdal will no doubt point out on 10 February.

Nibbles: Fonio commercialization, Naked barley, Food books, Ag decarbonization, Nepal NUS, Millets & women, Crop diversity video, Maize god, Cherokee genebank, CWR, Japan genebank

  1. A Nigerian company is pushing fonio as the next global super-food. What could possibly go wrong?
  2. Personally, I think naked barley has a better chance.
  3. Humanities scholars recommend their favourite new books on food systems. I bet there will soon be one on fonio.
  4. Food and agriculture analyst at the Breakthrough Institute pens whole essay on how there should be public investment in moving agriculture from productivity gains to decarbonization without mentioning fonio.
  5. Well Nepal has orphan crops of its own and doesn’t give a fig for your fonio.
  6. Blogpost highlights the role of women in the cultivation and conservation of millets in Tamil Nadu.
  7. ISSD Africa video on the advantages of growing a diversity of crops, especially under climate change. Fonio, anyone?
  8. What does maize have to do with turtles? Gather round, children…
  9. The Cherokee Nation’s genebank is open for business. Maize available. No turtles.
  10. Long article on collecting, conserving and using crop wild relatives, including by Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank. Could fonio do with some diversity from its wild relatives? I suspect it’s not a huge priority, but maybe it will become one.
  11. It’s unclear how much diversity of orphan crops is in Japan’s high-tech genebank, but I bet it’s quite a bit. Fonio, I’m not so sure though. Maybe someone will tell me.

Brainfood: Breeding edition

Nibbles: Eating to Extinction, Livestock Conservancy, Pastoral diversification, Donkeys, ICARDA, USDA, Native Seeds/SEARCH, Duragna, Baked bean bread, Kenosha Potato Project, Landrace marketing, Gene editing

  1. All the videos from the recent Eating to Extinction event in London celebrating food diversity.
  2. If you want to eat rare breeds or their products, the Livestock Conservancy has a website for you.
  3. ILRI policy brief on how pastoral systems can usefully diversify.
  4. The BBC rounds up the history of the domestication of the donkey without, alas, mentioning the Livestock Conservancy or pastoral diversification. Spoiler alert: ancient Roman donkeys were really big.
  5. NPR interviews the manager of the ICARDA genebank in Lebanon.
  6. Local Oregon paper visits the USDA genebank in Pullman.
  7. It’s the turn of the Native Seed/SEARCH genebank to feature in the news.
  8. Want to know what “duragna” is? This press release from Cornell will explain all. I think we included the original paper in a recent Brainfood, but I can’t be bothered checking. Anyway, trust me, it’s interesting. Spoiler alert: it has to do with cereal diversity.
  9. Brits told to grow more faba beans and use them to make bread. Census takers not available for comment.
  10. Fascinating project on the history of saffron cultivation in eastern England. Now that would spice up all that faba bean bread.
  11. The Kenosha Potato Project deconstructed to within an inch of its life by Modern Farmer. We’ve blogged about this innovative breeding project here before, have a look. Ah no, I just have, and in fact we haven’t, though we have blogged about William Whitson, an independent tuber breeder, who is however a long-time member of KPP.
  12. Meanwhile, in Peru, local potato landraces are finding a new market via chips/crisps. Pretty sure we’ve blogged about this too. We are so on the ball.
  13. Gene editing for conservation? Yes, why not? But nothing on crop and livestock species in this succinct explainer, alas.