Category: Commodity

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Nibbles: China seeds, Dixie apples, USDA genebanks, ASU dates, IPR, IFG grapes, Pick-a-mix, Coffee ESG, French heirlooms, Belgian brewing, Tanzanian sorghum, Horse-bread, Roots & tubers, Guyana cassava, SDG indicators

  1. China announces a slew of seed-related measures.
  2. A slew of seeds kept apples diverse in the US South, but not so much any more.
  3. Fortunately there’s a slew of apples, among many other things, in the USDA genebank system.
  4. Dates too, probably, but this article is actually about the (complementary?) collection at Arizona State University.
  5. A slew of intellectual protections has been good for seed companies. But consumers?
  6. IFG no doubts benefits mightily from intellectual property protection of its grape varieties. The diversity of which you can peruse on this nice website.
  7. Speaking of nice websites, this one helps farmers pick-a-mix of crops. Intercropping is diversity too.
  8. How the coffee industry is trying to cope with a slew of sustainability rules. Yeah, sometimes IP protection is not enough.
  9. But who owns heritage varieties?
  10. Including heritage varieties of Belgian malting barley and other cereals.
  11. Speaking of malting, they use sorghum in Tanzania.
  12. It’s unclear what heritage varieties went into making horse-bread, but I’d like to taste the stuff.
  13. But who needs bread (or beer?) anyway? There’s a slew of root and tuber crops in Africa and elsewhere just waiting to solve hunger…
  14. …as Guyana knows well.
  15. Wanna keep track of (most of) the above? FAO has you (sorta) covered via a slew of indicators.
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Nibbles: Ukraine genebank, Inequality, Olive breeding, Colorado apples, Indian rice diversity, Edible trees, Australian Grains Genebank

  1. Spanish-language article about the effort to save Ukraine’s genebank.
  2. Report on “Reducing inequalities for food security and nutrition” from the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). They don’t say so explicitly, but genebanks can help with that.
  3. They can certainly help with breeding new olive varieties, which are much needed.
  4. Genebanks come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes an apple orchard is also a genebank.
  5. Sometimes rice farmers are genebanks.
  6. I wonder how many genebanks conserve trees with edible leaves. This book doesn’t say, alas.
  7. The Australian Grains Genebank (AGG) gets a boost. No word on whether it will start conserving edible trees.
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Nibbles: Agroecology, Wheat breeding, NUS in LA, Fonio beer, Herbarium seeds, Ukraine herbarium, Grasspea breeding, Plant Treaty

  1. You want agroecology? Don’t neglect labour issues.
  2. You can’t neglect hot dry winds if you want the breed wheat for Kansas these days.
  3. IFPRI continues to ride the latest neglected crops bandwagon, this time in Latin America.
  4. In Africa, beer may rescue fonio from neglect.
  5. Rescuing plants from herbarium sheets.
  6. Rescuing herbarium sheets in Ukraine.
  7. Breeding a safe grasspea will definitely save it from neglect.
  8. Meanwhile, in Rome, negotiations to enhance the Plant Treaty’s multilateral system of access and benefit sharing re-start. I bet a whole bunch of neglected crops are on the agenda.
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Nibbles: Milpa revival, Cretan olive, Lost apples, Moche meals, African agroecology, Global Tree Knowledge Platform, Issues in Agricultural Biodiversity

  1. Marketing the milpa.
  2. Marketing a traditional Cretan olive variety.
  3. Finding lost apples in New England. Now to market them.
  4. Taking new passion fruit varieties to market in Australia.
  5. Deconstructing Moche history, society and culture through compost and struggle meals. No sign of markets.
  6. Reviewing the state of agroecology in Africa. Does “economic diversification” count as marketing?
  7. The Global Tree Knowledge Platform must have stuff on marketing somewhere.
  8. The books series ISSUES IN AGRICULTURAL BIODIVERSITY, now free to download, has lots on marketing.