- Diversifying agrifood systems to ensure global food security following the Russia–Ukraine crisis. Diversify markets, production, crops and technology to de-risk agrifood systems.
- Genebanks at Risk: Hazard Assessment and Risk Management of National and International Genebanks. De-risk genebanks first though.
- Climate-Smart Agriculture in African Countries: A Review of Strategies and Impacts on Smallholder Farmers. Could have made more of the need for diversity, but improved varieties at least are in there.
- Adoption and impact of improved amaranth cultivars in Tanzania using DNA fingerprinting. Yeah, even improved varieties of traditional local veggies, why not.
- GlobalUsefulNativeTrees, a database documenting 14,014 tree species, supports synergies between biodiversity recovery and local livelihoods in landscape restoration. But don’t forget trees.
- Efforts of researchers and other stakeholders to manage an unfolding epidemic: Lessons from potato purple top in Ecuador. Resilience is hard.
- Seed Systems Resilience—An Overview. Continuous flow of diversity, trustworthy institutions and innovation are needed to de-risk seed systems. Would certainly have helped with the above.
- Navigating toward resilient and inclusive seed systems. Or…: do no harm, think diversity and adopt a seed security perspective. Good to see diversity as the common thread in this discourse.
- Seed systems development to navigate multiple expectations in Ethiopia, Malawi and Tanzania. The above put into practice.
- Community seed banks: Instruments for food security or unsustainable endeavour? A case study of Mkombezi Community Seed Bank in Malawi. Yes, indeed, community seedbanks can contribute to seed systems resilience and food security.
- Maize varietal replacement in Eastern and Southern Africa: Bottlenecks, drivers and strategies for improvement. Seed companies need to be more proactive…
- Why farmers use so many different maize varieties in West Kenya? …but remember about doing no harm. And we’re back to diversity I see.
Nibbles: Ukraine genebank, Inequality, Olive breeding, Colorado apples, Indian rice diversity, Edible trees, Australian Grains Genebank
- Spanish-language article about the effort to save Ukraine’s genebank.
- 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.
- They can certainly help with breeding new olive varieties, which are much needed.
- Genebanks come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes an apple orchard is also a genebank.
- Sometimes rice farmers are genebanks.
- I wonder how many genebanks conserve trees with edible leaves. This book doesn’t say, alas.
- The Australian Grains Genebank (AGG) gets a boost. No word on whether it will start conserving edible trees.
Nibbles: Milpa revival, Cretan olive, Lost apples, Moche meals, African agroecology, Global Tree Knowledge Platform, Issues in Agricultural Biodiversity
- Marketing the milpa.
- Marketing a traditional Cretan olive variety.
- Finding lost apples in New England. Now to market them.
- Taking new passion fruit varieties to market in Australia.
- Deconstructing Moche history, society and culture through compost and struggle meals. No sign of markets.
- Reviewing the state of agroecology in Africa. Does “economic diversification” count as marketing?
- The Global Tree Knowledge Platform must have stuff on marketing somewhere.
- The books series ISSUES IN AGRICULTURAL BIODIVERSITY, now free to download, has lots on marketing.
Nibbles: SDG funding, GBIF RoI, Food system revitalisation, Bean Power, British baked beans, Cock beer, Access Agriculture, SCANR, Nuts, Hawaii, USDA livestock, Norway livestock, SPC, and WorldVeg genebanks, Millet ambassador, Mango orchards, Wild foods, Degraded lands, Orphan crops, PPB, Biofortification, Ugali, Variety ID, Variety definitions
- The SDGs need proper long-term financing, say Prof. Jeffrey Sachs and co-authors. Maybe he’d like to have a look at the the Crop Trust’s endowment fund for SDG 2.5?
- There’s a 15x return on investment from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)? Ok, do Genesys next.
- Want to revitalize the food system? Think lentils, bananas, kale and walnuts. My take? Why stop there?
- I mean, there’s all sorts of cool pulses besides lentils, nice as they are.
- Really no end to them.
- Want some cock beer with your Lincolnshire beans? I bet you do.
- Shout out for the Access Agriculture farmer-to-farmer educational video platform from the Seed System Newsletter. Nothing on walnuts, alas. Or cock beer.
- As we’re on online resources, there’s also the Support Centre for Agriculture and Nutrition Research (SCANR). It “connects researchers with resources and guidance for carrying out interdisciplinary research related to agriculture, food systems, nutrition, and health.” I wonder what it has to say about walnuts.
- Nut genebank gets an upgrade in Oregon. No, not walnuts, alas. It’s Miller time!
- Lots of genebank action in Hawaii too.
- Livestock also getting the genebank treatment in the US.
- But not just in the US: Norway too. Love these back-from-the-brink stories.
- The regional genebank for the Pacific is one of my favourites.
- It’s up there with that of the World Vegetable Centre, which is getting a write-up in the New Yorker, of all places.
- Of course you can have community-level genebanks too. Here are two examples from India: conserving millets and mangoes.
- Maybe there should be more genebanks for wild food species, but these cool in situ conservation stories will do for now.
- Investing in community farming projects can revitalise degraded lands.
- Those farming project don’t have to involve orphan crops, but it wouldn’t hurt.
- You could do participatory plant breeding on them, couldn’t you. This book says that be just the ticket for rural revitalisation. Lots of revitalisation in these Nibbles.
- They would help with malnutrition where maize biofortification hasn’t worked so well, for example.
- Maize? Maize needs to be decolonized, not biofortified.
- Extension workers need to be better at identifying different crop varieties. IITA is on the case, but doesn’t seem to have thought about putting the data on GBIF. Walnuts next?
- Wait, what’s a variety?
Nibbles: Business, CGIAR & FARA, Agrobiodiversity Index, Beans, Artisanal sake, Nabhan on mezcals, Kernza anniversary, Fish diversity, Amazon trees, Dark extinctions
- Gardening pioneer says “Be as diverse as possible!“
- Frank Elderson, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB and Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB, says businesses should be as biodiverse as possible.
- CGIAR and FARA launch an initiative to transform agriculture in Africa but the role of biodiversity is unclear.
- Maybe they should embrace the Agrobiodiversity Index, now that it has won a big prize.
- Speaking of agricultural biodiversity and prizes, here’s a podcast on the EXARC Experimental Archaeology Award winning project “Investigating the Origin of the Common Bean in the New World.”
- A trio of pieces on agrobiodiverse products: sake, mezcal, Kernza.
- Don’t forget fish need to be as diverse as possible too.
- Ok, not agriculture-related, but this visual essay on finding the tallest tree in the Amazon is really cool.
- Not so cool: some species you can only see in natural history collections. The world is not as diverse as possible.