Genebanks

May 14, 2024May 14, 2024

Happy birthday ILRI genebank

The genebank of the International Livestock Research Institute in Addis Ababa is 40 years old. There’s an online celebration tomorrow. See you there.

Photo credit: Shawn Landersz, Consultant at The Global Crop Diversity Trust

Oh, and probably coincidentally, you can read about ILRI’s forage work in Somalia in the latest newsletter from the Seed Systems Group.

May 13, 2024May 8, 2024

Brainfood: Yield gap, Domestication & breeding, TEK, Breeding gourds, Breeding pearl millet, Breeding peas, Banana seed systems, Breeding bees

Global spatially explicit yield gap time trends reveal regions at risk of future crop yield stagnation. For 8 of 10 major crops, yield gaps have widened steadily from 1975 to 2010 over most areas, and remained static for sugar cane and oil palm. Time to turbo-charge the breeding?
Domestication and the evolution of crops: variable syndromes, complex genetic architectures, and ecological entanglements. If you want to turbo-charge breeding, you need to understand (among other things) the ecological context of domestication.
Including Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in Agricultural Research: Guidelines and Lessons Learned. I suspect Traditional Ecological Knowledge can help with figuring out the ecological context of domestication.
High levels of genetic variation and differentiation in wild tropical gourds provide a novel resource for cucurbit crop improvement. Ok, but ecological knowledge would like a word.
Understanding genetic diversity in drought-adaptive hybrid parental lines in pearl millet. Any link to ecology of original collecting sites, I wonder?
Genetic Diversity and Population Structure Analysis of a Diverse Panel of Pea (Pisum sativum). Again, ecological knowledge conspicuous by its absence. Maybe the passport data just weren’t up to it?
Banana seed exchange networks in Burundi – Linking formal and informal systems. Yes, yes, it’s not just about the breeding, the seed system also has to work.
Editorial: Current status of honey bee genetic and breeding programs: progress and perspectives. Pollinators need breeding programmes too.

May 10, 2024May 13, 2024

Leaders of crop diversity conservation land World Food Prize

Great to see a couple of my former bosses recognized for their exceptional contributions to the conservation of crop diversity.

I like this quote from Geoff:

This is really a chance to get that message out and say, look, this relatively small amount of money is our insurance policy, our insurance policy that we’re going to be able to feed the world in 50 years.

April 30, 2024

Nibbles: Seed video, Kew video, Indonesian cassava, Crop maps, Neglected crops, KEPHIS lab, Turkish genebank, Nepal rice, Polynesian sugarcane, Ancient beer, Garlic basics

Nice video celebrating seeds.
Nice old video about Kew Gardens.
Tracing the origins of Indonesian cassava. No, it wasn’t introduced by Kew, but yes, colonialism was involved.
Latest data on where crops are grown. Including cassava.
Self Help Africa director turns on to neglected crops. Including cassava.
New lab in Kenya for spreading clean crops around. Including cassava?
Türkiye’s genebank in the news. No cassava.
Nepalese rice gets a Welsh upgrade.
Collecting sugarcane in French Polynesia to (eventually) support local booze industry.
Long live the ancient booze bandwagon.
Garlic 101.

April 9, 2024April 9, 2024

Brainfood: Food shift, Food footprint, Periodic Table of Food, Nutritious food, Diverse food, Food seed kits, Food meta-metrics

Food matters: Dietary shifts increase the feasibility of 1.5°C pathways in line with the Paris Agreement. Go flexitarian.
Biodiversity footprints of 151 popular dishes from around the world. Go flexitarian?
Periodic Table of Food Initiative for generating biomolecular knowledge of edible biodiversity. Unclear if flexitarians have the best molecules.
Environmentally protective diets may come with trade-offs for micronutrient adequacy. More sustainable may mean less nutritious. Flexitarians unavailable for comment.
Market engagement, crop diversity, dietary diversity, and food security: evidence from small-scale agricultural households in Uganda. Market access and crop diversification are both good for dietary diversity and food security. The ultimate flexitarianism.
Sustainability of one-time seed distributions: a long-term follow-up of vegetable seed kits in Tanzania. Now watch flexitarians demand an even playing field.
Developing holistic assessments of food and agricultural systems: A meta‑framework for metrics users. One framework to rule all of the above.