Funding

Nibbles: Genebanks in South Africa, Ethiopia, Cherokee Nation, China, India, The Netherlands…

South Africa ratifies the Plant Treaty. Hope its genebank goes from strength to strength.
Ethiopia ratified a long time ago, and its genebank is going strong.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the Cherokee Nation could ratify the Plant Treaty?
Want to build a community genebank like the Cherokee Nation’s? Here’s a resource.
China hasn’t ratified, but that hasn’t stopped it building genebanks.
And using their contents, presumably.
India has ratified, and is also building genebanks.
The Netherlands ratified long ago, but I’m not sure if it has a water lentil (duckweed) collection, or if it does whether it’s in the Plant Treaty’s Multilateral System. But maybe it will, and it will be, soon. I hope so.
The Dutch also have an animal genebank, BTW.
Watermelons are not in the Plant Treaty’s Multilateral System, but maybe they should be.
Neither is Trigonella, though many other temperate legume forages are, so who knows.

Collecting tree seeds properly and respectfully is not easy.
No word on how easy it is to collect tepary beans respectfully.
Helping the USDA with their germplasm evaluations, on the other hand, is a breeze. Any tepary beans?
Seed Savers Exchange makes conserving seeds look easy. Spoiler alert: it isn’t.
It seems to be very easy to open new national genebanks in China.
Farming is easier in Nepal with indigenous crops.
Giant yams don’t look very easy to grow, but that’s not stopping some dedicated Indian women.
It’s pretty easy — and fun — to visit the United Kingdom’s National Fruit Collection.
Someone mention apples? Loammi Baldwin knew a thing or two about them.
It’s going to get easier to identify plants. It says here.
If you’re looking for interventions or policies to shift diets towards being healthier and more sustainable, your job just got a little easier.
Likewise if you think the crises of biodiversity loss, water and food insecurity, health risks and climate change should be tackled together.
Yes, even if you’re a business trying to manage your biodiversity risk you have a right to have it easier. Start by being respectful when climbing trees?

A paean to diverse diets is just what we all need.
And another one, from the MIT Technology Review of all places.
Menawhile, there’s only one reference to dietary diversity in the World Bank’s investment framework for nutrition.
Maybe you have to quantify that diversity before you can save it? Now where have I heard that before?
Meanwhile, Europe reports on biodiversity-friendly farming practices. Does that include the biodiversity of the actual crops? Perhaps surprisingly, yes!
You want biodiversity-friendly farming practices? Talk to Indigenous people. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has launched an e-consultation on “Preserving, strengthening and promoting Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems and traditional practices for sustainable food systems.”
There’s diversity in asparagus too.
Genebanks can help with those biodiversity-friendly practices, diverse diets and rops and Indigenous practices.
Even big international genebanks.
Even the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
But some are in trouble.
Though others are coming back.

Will a plant germplasm accession conserved in a genebank change genetically over time? Sure, change is inevitable, but it can be minimized, and some can be accepted.
Cocoyam (Xanthosoma sagittifolium (L.) Schott) genetic resources and breeding: a review of 50 years of research efforts. Conventional breeding, based on inducing flowering, is possible, but will require more international exchange of germplasm. I hope someone is saving the seeds.
Pollen banking is a critical need for conserving plant diversity. Even if it changes genetically over time.
Applications of dry chain technology to maintain high seed viability in tropical climates. You’ve got to dry your seeds fast and hard. Probably your pollen too, come to that.
Harmonize rules for digital sequence information benefit-sharing across UN frameworks. The big question is, should there be a single trigger point for monetary benefits, or separate ones for each treaty? At least the sequences do not change over time. But what about if the accessions from which they are derived do?
Involving citizens in monitoring the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Yes, let’s get citizens to help us monitor all that change.

With remarkable regularity, China announces some impressive genebank thing. Like a catalog for 105 tropical crop genebanks. But where is it?
On the other hand, we probably don’t hear enough about African genebanks, so this piece is very welcome.
Or about genebanks in Papua New Guinea, for that matter.
Have we heard enough about “opportunity crops” yet? No, probably not.
We will never stop hearing about the “bananocalypse,” I suspect.
Or about the IRRI genebank from Mike Jackson. Not that I mind.
The latest on the African Runner Peanut, about which we have blogged before. Several times. Not that I mind.
I will never tire of hearing about genebanks getting loads of money.
I will also never tire of hearing about win-win outcomes for biodiversity and food production.
The Navajo know all about that. And the Wayuu people in Guajira, Colombia for that matter.
We will soon all be tired of hearing about all the various COPs, but for now let’s see what the Dutch genebank and, let’s see who else we have, ok, sure, why not, ESG investors — what do they have to say?