Category: Climate change

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Nibbles: Oz genebanks, Turkish heirlooms, Indian heirlooms, Peruvian cryobank, Chinese cryobank, Seeds for farmers, Gamma gardens, Bees, DSI, Seville cathedral, Food & climate change

  1. Australian politicians promise genebank. World holds its breath.
  2. Meanwhile, in Turkey…
  3. … and India…
  4. …and Peru…
  5. …and China.
  6. Another way of getting seeds to farmers.
  7. What, even irradiated ones?
  8. But don’t forget the bees.
  9. Hopefully DIS won’t scupper all this sharing.
  10. Because although our foods are not set in stone…
  11. …we’ll need more than changes in habits to adapt agriculture to climate change.
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Nibbles: Eat this tomato, Access to Seeds Index, Tongan coconuts, Grounding the groundnut, Traditional Spain, Genebanks in China and Nigeria, Tree conservation, Sorghum & millet breeding, Iraqi ag, Genebank presentations

  1. Jeremy gets into tomato domestication and diversity on his podcast.
  2. The 2021 Access to Seeds Index Insights Report is out, and includes tomatoes.
  3. What is the most famous place for coconut varieties?
  4. A new book attempts to decolonize the peanut.
  5. Blood and water in Spain.
  6. A tale of two genebanks: China and Nigeria. Maybe the African Union can help? If not, maybe China might.
  7. Africa needs help with tree planting too. Maybe follow Italy’s example?
  8. Though maybe sorghum and millet will be ok.
  9. Send them to Iraqi farmers?
  10. Presentations on seed conservation and use in genebanks.
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The Guardian on the guardians of agrobiodiversity

There’s a big series on agricultural biodiversity unfolding in The Guardian. So far we’ve had the following:

  1. Our food system isn’t ready for the climate crisis, including pithy quote from yours truly.
  2. Seed banks: the last line of defense against a threatening global food crisis, including pithy quote from my boss.
  3. ‘We’re running out of time’: Dan Saladino on why the loss of diversity in our foods matters, including numerous pithy quotes from Dan.
  4. Blue corn and melons: meet the seed keepers reviving ancient, resilient crops, including pithy quotes from Roxanne Swentzell and others.

I’m not sure how much more there is to come, but I hope it keeps going a while yet.

LATER: There was indeed more!

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Nibbles: Genebanks and CC, Use of genebanks, Wild potatoes, Potato evaluation, TLB breeding, Canadian tree genebank

  1. Climate change is sending people to genebanks…
  2. …and leading to their holdings being used in lots of different and interesting ways.
  3. Collections of wild potatoes will surely be very useful…
  4. …for projects such a this, for example.
  5. And there’s also taro leaf blight to see to…
  6. …as well as trees important to Indigenous people to be conserved.