Brainfood: Sustainable diets, Resilient food system, IK in food systems double, Herbarium double, Ag research priorities, Fruits & vegetables, Cryopreservation, Diverse diets, Gene editing orphan crops, Ag revolution 4.0, Diversification, Monoculture, Agroecology, Regenerative ag, Plant health, Svalbard, Seed banking theory, Comms double

Fact-checking The Economist on breadfruit

Last week’s The Economist has a nice piece in its Graphic Detail section on how climate change is affecting yields of some crops so much that farmers in many parts of the world will be increasingly tempted — if not compelled — to switch to different crops.

Even if more climate-resilient varieties of the crops farmers are currently growing come on-line, along with better agronomic practices, it may in some cases just be easier and more profitable to grow something else, says the article.

Like breadfruit, it adds, cheekily. Before concluding, rather more constructively, that, given the uncertainties involved, farmers should “learn about a wide variety of crops.”

I’d have liked to share a chart or two here, but the licensing paywall is steep, so I’ll just point to the four studies that the article references. Unlike The Economist, though, I’ll actually give the full titles, and link to the papers — Brainfood-style.

LATER: Actually, let me add another one to the list, not in the piece in The Economist but also relevant, and complemented by a useful Q&A with one of the authors.

Big Ag tells world how to fix ag, world tells Big Ag “heal thyself”

Readers may remember a recent Nibble on a report by some Big Ag head honchos saying that we’re destroying the planet and we should, you know, stop. That was met mainly by shouts of “who’s this we?” and variations thereof.

Well, so now there’s a another report by what seems to be a different set of Big Ag head honchos, but the response is predictably similar.

All grist to the COP27 mill, I guess, where for once agriculture is front and center.

You see what I did there?

Nibbles: Trevor Williams, ICRISAT genebank, Irish seedbank, Domestication video, COP27 genebank webinar, Pasturelands, Big Food report, Mesopotamian cooking

  1. The late Prof. Trevor Williams, one of the pioneers of genebanking, in the news.
  2. The President of Niger visits a genebank, makes the news.
  3. Irish seedbanking in the news.
  4. Dr Mark Chapman on how to study domestication using seeds in genebanks.
  5. COP27 webinar on using seeds in genebanks for climate change adaptation.
  6. Pasturelands: sometimes genebanks are not enough. Though even then I bet they can help.
  7. Big Food still not doing much to support genebanks, despite reports such as this.
  8. A book on ancient Mesopotamian cooking. Who can think of the best link to genebanks?