- Global synergy cropland map. Yes, another one.
- Acquisition and regeneration of Spinacia turkestanica Iljin and S. tetrandra Steven ex M. Bieb. to improve a spinach gene bank collection. CGN plugs some gaps.
- Recent responses to climate change reveal the drivers of species extinction and survival. Niche shifts more important than dispersal in avoiding extinction.
- Climate change responses benefit from a global food system approach. Well I never.
- Morphological characterisation and evaluation of cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) in Trinidad to facilitate utilisation of Trinitario cacao globally. Some combine large seeds with high seed numbers.
- The environmental impacts of palm oil and its alternatives. Not as bad as you may think.
- Macroalgal germplasm banking for conservation, food security, and industry. Liquid cultures in dormancy is the way to do it, apparently.
- Simple Sequence Repeat-Based Genetic Diversity and Analysis of Molecular Variance among on-Farm Native Potato Landraces from the Influence Zone of Camisea Gas Project, Northern Ayacucho, Peru. So what will be done about it?
- Livelihood, Food and Nutrition Security in Southern Africa: What Role Do Indigenous Cattle Genetic Resources Play? A big role which in in danger and could in fact be bigger.
- 5,200-year-old cereal grains from the eastern Altai Mountains redate the trans-Eurasian crop exchange. Wheat and barley in the Altai one thousand years before we thought.
- Complex responses of global insect pests to climate warming. 41% of 31 globally important phytophagous insect pests will increase in severity, jury out on what will happen with the others.
AfricaRice’s new genebank opens for business
With all that’s been going on in Svalbard, I neglected to note that Africa Rice has just inaugurated its new genebank, the Rice Biodiversity Center for Africa, in Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire. Here’s the press release. And here’s a Q&A from a few years back with the genebank manager, Dr Marie-Noëlle Ndjiondjop. This piece from the Genebank Platform gives the background: it’s a sad story with a happy ending, do read it. There’s more information on the genebank on the Platform website. And of course there’s an overview of its holdings in Genesys.
Final word on One CGIAR viewpoints
Ok, let’s recap. Food Policy put out a sort of special issue, or rather special section of its latest issue, entitled On Research Strategy for the new ‘One CGIAR’. It consists of an editorial plus 5 “viewpoint” papers. They’re all behind paywalls. I first just saw the one by Dr David Lobell, and wrote a bit about it here. Then I saw the ones by Drs Rebecca Nelson and Lawrence Haddad, and wrote about them.
It was then that I finally twigged to the scale of the thing, and saw the two remaining pieces. Actually it was thanks to a Twitter exchange, but maybe that’s another story. One of the viewpoints I missed is by Dr Pedro Sanchez, who basically says that CGIAR should focus more on nutrient-rich foods, both plant- and animal-based, which is congruent with the others in highlighting the importance of agricultural biodiversity without actually mentioning it, let alone genebanks. The second is by a group of 6 Cornell researchers, and they summarize their recommendations as follows, and I quote:
- One CGIAR must cooperate and collaborate with multiple international partners.
- One CGIAR must build regional capacity and training in cooperation with NARIs.
- Working environments at the One CGIAR must address researchers’ work-life issues.
- One CGIAR requires research strategies that are policy-relevant and proven to work.
- One CGIAR must lead in advocating for and communicating about science.
Which I can’t really distinguish from what’s happening at the moment, except maybe in terms of quantity, but anyway.
Still waiting for reactions, in particular from NARIs. Go for it below…
Nibbles: Innovation, CWR, Pathogens, Forage, Phenotyping
- Innovations for sustainable food systems: genebanks are in there but frankly I find the whole thing a bit problematic. Just gonna leave that there. Feel free to comment here.
- Colin Khoury’s backstory. Also some CWR.
- The fight against pathogens. Of plants, settle down.
- Better Napier grass is good for everyone. Including the cows. But wait, “…[i]t doesn’t really matter which grass…”
- Phenome2020 recapped.
Nibbles: Columella, Thomas Bowrey, Dreamtime, Oz seedbank, Kenya sweetpotato, Dalla Ragione, Apple hunter, Cydonia, Caribbean nutmeg, Wheat synthetics, ICARDA forages, Land cover map
- Recreating Roman wine. It’s the tar, stupid.
- Decolonizing weed.
- Ancient Aboriginal foraging and cooking was quite something.
- The National Seed Bank at the Australian National Botanic Garden makes the news. See what I did there?
- So does sweetpotato in Kenya.
- Turning to art to find lost fruit varieties in Italy.
- Remembering Lee Calhoun of North American Fruit Explorers.
- Bringing back the quince. That’s the fruit trifecta.
- Might as well bring nutmeg back too.
- CIMMYT’s synthetic hexaploid wheat programme explained in a PowerPoint.
- Report on screening ICARDA’s wild forages.
- Nerd out with cool land cover map in Google Earth Engine. Mash up with above, for example?