Can the food processing industry contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity? Of course it can. Even in genebanks? Sure, why not. There’s no reason beyond a failure of the imagination to think that genebanks can’t participate directly in the food value chain as innovation partners, supporting sustainable products and market differentiation. Too bad there’s not a ton of examples. A pretty good one is NordGen’s partnerships with the food company Oatly. Oatly funded trials of more than 800 oat accessions, generating phenotypic and genomic data that identified traits valuable for taste and processing. The collaboration provided industry with suitable varieties while enriching NordGen’s documentation of its collection. This and a few — too few — other examples can be found in From seed to shelf: Models for integrating agrobiodiversity in food processing activities, from FAO and the Plant Treaty. I hope one day soon the coffee industry wakes up and smell the genebanks.
Nibbles: Agricultural expansion maps, Brassica diversity, Not against the grain, South African seedbanks, Safer peanuts, Diné seedbank
- Agriculture is bad for natural ecosystems. But great for maps, you have to admit.
- Greens are good for you. And this is a great roundup of the latest scholarship on brassica evolution, domestication and diversity. You’ll find most of the paper quoted in past Brainfoods.
- Grains are great. Especially with greens.
- Thank goodness for household seed banking. Especially in conjunction with the formal kind.
- All so we can breed a better peanut. And cut down more natural ecosystem?
- No, there’s community genebanks for that too…
These seeds are from the government, and they’re here to help you
In his recent paper in Plant Genetic Resources, Reimagining the Role of National Genebanks: Purposes, Priorities, and Programs, Cary Fowler offers a refreshingly blunt intervention for the world’s national genebanks.
The paper suggests a radical pivot: stop acting like dusty museums and start acting like high-energy dating agencies for seeds. Fowler argues that for many small, underfunded facilities, the traditional “Fort Knox” model of long-term conservation is a trap. If you can’t store seeds properly and you aren’t sharing your stash, you aren’t a guardian: you’re a threat. His solution?
Instead of waiting for breeders to call, who don’t exist anyway for a lot of “minor” crops, genebanks should be putting diversity directly into the hands of farmers. Fowler invokes the “inventive art” of 19th-century American agriculture, where the government functioned like a giant postal seed-swapping club. He envisions modern genebanks acquiring diversity, screening it, and sending out cleverly selected landraces and cultivars for farmers to try out in their own fields.
It’s a bold call to move from the passive “save it for a rainy day” mentality to an active “let’s see what grows in the rain” strategy. The future of diversity isn’t just in the freezer; it’s in the mail, at least for many underfunded national genebanks and so-called “opportunity crops.” Brave new world. But it does all assume the rest of the system is functioning — and is funded — properly…
Nibbles: Online seeds, Yam breeding, Rice genebanks, Indian commmunity seed banks, Sikkim banana, Cassava disease, ICARDA genebank, Tajikistan women
- The perils of dematerialization play out in India.
- Is YamHub dematerialization?
- Rice genebanks in Bangladesh and at IRRI are pretty solid.
- There’s a pretty solid platform for India’s community seed banks.
- I hope Nagaland’s wild bananas end up in genebanks.
- Cassava’s diversity is in multiple genebanks, and that’s a good thing, CBSD and all.
- ICARDA’s genebank back in the Syrian news, though in a good way for once.
- Tajikistan’s women farmers are bringing back crops with not a worry about dematerialization. Or genebanks, it seems.
Brainfood: Restoration edition
- Addressing critiques refines global estimates of reforestation potential for climate change mitigation. Better mapping shows there is less land available for reforestation than we thought, and there are limited opportunities for providing multiple benefits. Still, that’s an area the size of Mexico, and worth trying to get it right.
- Genomic approaches to accelerate American chestnut restoration. The American chestnut people seem to be getting it right.
- A native seed bank is restoring land in Canada’s north. Native people — and their genebanks — can help you get it right.
- Controlled Pollination and Reproductive Strategies in Coconut: A Framework for Farmer-Led Breeding, Seednut Production, and In Situ Conservation. Farmers can be helped to get it right.
- Dehulling the secret of the germination of crop wild relatives of Cenchrus, Digitaria, Echinochloa, Setaria and Urochloa. You need information on germination breaking to get it right. In the US Midwest, for example.
- How can Brazilian legislation on native seeds advance based on good practices of restoration in other countries? Not to mention the right policies.