- Nature-Based Solutions and Agroecology: Business as Usual or an Opportunity for Transformative Change? Nature-based solutions need to be diversity-based. Let’s look at some example, shall we? Buckle up…
- The productive performance of intercropping. Meta-analysis shows intercropping leads to more land sparing and more protein compared to monoculture.
- Sparing or expanding? The effects of agricultural yields on farm expansion and deforestation in the tropics. Ouch, increasing yield results more often in higher deforestation than lower. If only they had gone for intercropping…
- Crop mixtures outperform rotations and landscape mosaics in regulation of two fungal wheat pathogens: a simulation study. …or crop mixtures.
- Intensified rice production negatively impacts plant biodiversity, diet, lifestyle and quality of life: transdisciplinary and gendered research in the Middle Senegal River Valley. And just to be clear, agricultural expansion can be bad for both farmers and the environment.
- Drivers and consequences of archetypical shifting cultivation transitions. Being able to charge rent is the main driver of the move away from shifting cultivation, but the environmental results depend on what system replaces it.
- Contribution of the biodiversity of edible plants to the diet and nutritional status of women in a Zapotec communities of the Sierra Norte, Oaxaca, Mexico. It’s the older, less educated housewives that are more nature-based, and all the better for it.
- Six Underutilized Grain Crops for Food and Nutrition in China. That would be barley, buckwheat, broomcorn millet, foxtail millet, oat, and sorghum, which would certainly make a nature-based breakfast of champions.
- Traditional crops and climate change adaptation: insights from the Andean agricultural sector. Growing traditional crops in the Andes may be less profitable, but it is more resilient to climate change. Unclear which of the two options is more nature-based, though. And has anyone told China?
- Opportunities and Challenges of Indigenous Food Plant Farmers in Integrating into Agri-Food Value Chains in Cape Town. To take advantage of nature-based solutions in South Africa, you have to know about local nature.
- Community Seedbanks in Uganda: Fostering Access to Genetic Diversity and Its Conservation. More research is needed to figure out how community seedbanks can be at their nature-based best.
Nibbles: Fonio commercialization, Naked barley, Food books, Ag decarbonization, Nepal NUS, Millets & women, Crop diversity video, Maize god, Cherokee genebank, CWR, Japan genebank
- A Nigerian company is pushing fonio as the next global super-food. What could possibly go wrong?
- Personally, I think naked barley has a better chance.
- Humanities scholars recommend their favourite new books on food systems. I bet there will soon be one on fonio.
- 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.
- Well Nepal has orphan crops of its own and doesn’t give a fig for your fonio.
- Blogpost highlights the role of women in the cultivation and conservation of millets in Tamil Nadu.
- ISSD Africa video on the advantages of growing a diversity of crops, especially under climate change. Fonio, anyone?
- What does maize have to do with turtles? Gather round, children…
- The Cherokee Nation’s genebank is open for business. Maize available. No turtles.
- 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.
- 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: Zea, Urochloa, Medicago, Solanum, Juglans, Camellia, Artocarpus, Lactuca, Phaseolus, and everything else
- Genome sequencing reveals evidence of adaptive variation in the genus Zea. Alleles associated with flowering time were key to adaptation in highland and temperate regions.
- THP9 enhances seed protein content and nitrogen-use efficiency in maize. And it came from wild teosinte.
- Diverged subpopulations in tropical Urochloa (Brachiaria) forage species indicate a role for facultative apomixis and varying ploidy in their population structure and evolution. Polyploidy plus apomixis equals world domination. Maize next?
- Plastid phylogenomics uncovers multiple species in Medicago truncatula (Fabaceae) germplasm accessions. Genebanks need to go beyond conventional taxonomy sometimes.
- Comparative Analysis of the Genetic Diversity of Chilean Cultivated Potato Based on a Molecular Study of Authentic Herbarium Specimens and Present-Day Gene Bank Accessions. Native Chilean potato landraces are being replaced and polluted…
- Diversity of Late Blight Resistance Genes in the VIR Potato Collection. …and will probably continue to be replaced and polluted.
- The United States Potato Genebank Holding of cv. Desiree is a Somatic Mutant of cv. Urgenta. Shit happens, even in well-run genebanks.
- Domestication and selection footprints in Persian walnuts (Juglans regia). Breeding hasn’t had much of an effect on diversity.
- Comparative phylogenetic analysis of oolong tea (Phoenix Dancong tea) using complete chloroplast genome sequences. Oolong teas are a genetic thing.
- Linking breadfruit cultivar names across the globe connects histories after 230 years of separation. Because of genebanks, botanic gardens, herbaria and three generations of women scientists we now know which breadfruit varieties Captain Bligh introduced to the West Indies.
- Lactuca georgica Grossh. is a wild species belonging to the secondary lettuce gene pool: additional evidence, obtained by KASP genotyping. A wild species gets demoted.
- Large genomic introgression blocks of Phaseolus parvifolius Freytag bean into the common bean enhance the crossability between tepary and common beans. A wild species helps with crossing two cultivated species. Figure out which genepool it belongs to after that.
- Genebanking plant genetic resources in the postgenomic era. Yeah, but all the above leads to the question: “what happens when all crop diversity has been sequenced?” Read this to find out.
Nibbles: Agroforestry, Old tea trees, Rare magnolia, New Brachiaria, Animal-based food, Oman livestock genebank
Nibbles: Diets, Millet seedbank, Healthy rice, Kazakh genebank, Decentralized seeds, Planet Local, White sage, White olive, Talangana collecting, Nature-based, Italian food, Citron, Indian quinoa, Crop expansion
- And…we’re back!
- Nice new infographics derived from that classic paper “Increasing homogeneity in global food supplies and the implications for food security.”
- Video on a millet community seedbank in India.
- I hope all these healthy Indian rices are in seedbanks somewhere, community or otherwise.
- Kazakhstan is getting a new genebank, and I don’t mean a community one.
- yeah but genebanks are not enough: enter INCREASE.
- Wait, there’s a World Localization Day?
- Looks like white sage might need less localization and more seedbanks.
- I see your Mexican white sage and raise you the Calabrian white olive.
- The Telangana equivalent of white sage is probably safe, though, if this collecting programme is anything to go by.
- IFAD pushes nature-based farmers. White sage unavailable for comment.
- The localization narrative meets Italian food. And yes, spoiler alert, Italian food does exist. Despite the increasing homogeneity in global food supplies. And it doesn’t need white olives either.
- Let the hand-wringing about the Italian-ness (Italianity?) of citrons commence. But not until I’ve left the room.
- Ah, but is there such a thing as Indian food? I mean, if there’s quinoa in it. I look forward to the eventual quinoa community seedbanks.
- All those crops are not being locally grown for food anyway.
- Have a happy new globalizing, localizing year, everyone.