Genebanks

April 25, 2026April 26, 2026

Uprooting crop diversity

Moving house is never any fun, but it’s particularly tricky for collections of crop diversity. You have to get the new facilities all ready, hundreds or even thousands of seed packets or test tubes or indeed live plants need to be kept safe and sound during the process, and then re-established in their new digs, and possibly new people may need to be hired and trained. Safe to say, you probably want to avoid relocating genebanks unless absolutely necessary, which is why it’s not all that common.

Surprising then to come across two examples within a few days.

The Domaine de Vassal grapevine collection in France ¹ is being moved to save it from the encroaching waters of the Mediterranean. Or maybe it was a problem with the lease? Anyway, it’s been in the works for at least 10 years, but it does seem to be finally happening. Despite, ahem, some reservations.

The rub with the new proposed site is that only a portion of its soil is sand-based. The collection is destined for a hillside of limestone-clay soils where the vines would be grafted onto rootstock.

“A heresy!” Deiss protested, saying grafting compromises the authenticity of the vines.

In contrast, USDA’s National Soybean Germplasm Collection on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus ² was supposed to be relocated in fiscal 2026, that was stopped by various stakeholders, but the whole thing is back on the agenda for fiscal 2027. The issue seems to be where the collection can be conserved most cost-effectively, but there may also be a bit of local politics involved as well. Predictably, I suppose.

“Having that vast collection so accessible to U. of I. researchers directly benefits Illinois farmers,” said Abigail Peterson, director of agronomy for the Illinois Soybean Association. “Whether it’s a new disease or soy oleic, I think the germplasm collection is the only avenue to explore and develop new traits. It’s just a huge tool in our toolbox.”

Good luck to the people involved in both cases. Whatever happens, I’m sure we all hope the collections remain safe and available for the long term.

April 24, 2026April 30, 2026

Beat the heat with seeds

I haven’t yet had a chance to read the full FAO–WMO joint report on Extreme heat and agriculture, but some preliminary skimming reveals that agrobiodiversity does seem to be addressed, at least to some extent:

No mention of genebanks, mind you. I guess you can’t have everything, but you’d have thought the following snippets could easily have been used to make the case very explicitly for ex situ conservation of crop diversity.

For domesticated agricultural species, human influence on the genome through selective breeding for enhanced performance in increasingly homogenous production environments has resulted in a loss of natural genetic variability that have accentuated many species vulnerability to temperature extremes.

…

It is only through innovation and the implementation of adaptative measures (e.g. selective breeding, making changes in the physical environment and altering management practices) that the global community can shelter agricultural activities from the larger forces of planetary human induced climate change.

…

Switching to more resilient species to extreme heat may result in reduced genetic diversity, increasing the vulnerability of crops and livestock to large-scale losses due to a narrower genetic base.

April 21, 2026April 20, 2026

Nibbles: Peruvian agrotourism, RSA heirloom apple, Wild tea in China, Native American seeds, Indian chiles, Genebanks, Kenyan tree planting

Agrobiodiversity inspires tourism in the Andes of Peru.
South African fruit exporters does its (small) bit for heirloom apple conservation.
Wild tea doing just fine in the Shunhuangshan National Nature Reserve in Hunan Province, China. Even when harvested by local communities. Looks great for tourism too.
Native communities in Nebraska getting some support for saving and exchanging seeds.
Women are in charge of chiles in Tamil Nadu.
Popular Science does genebanks. At least one genebank has tourism potential, I’d say.
Want to support forest landscape restoration through native tree planting in Kenya? Go to MyFarmTrees, and help keep Kenya a tourism hotspot.

April 20, 2026April 20, 2026

Brainfood: Animal diversity edition

Livestock grazing boosts plant diversity in the Greater Serengeti–Mara Ecosystem. Livestock can be good for biodiversity conservation. But can its diversity be conserved too? Let’s see.
Conservation and Management of Animal Genetic Resources in the Context of African Livestock Production Systems: The Case for In Situ and Ex Situ Conservation. “The multi-stakeholder breeders-researchers-decision-makers approach remains the most robust solution for sound management and preservation of biological units.” What, no farmers and local communities? No, that’s unfair: community-based conservation is discussed. But it doesn’t feel as central to the whole thing as it should be, somehow.
Genetic Diversity, Adaptation, Wild Introgression, and Coat Color Mutation of Golden Yak. After all, local communities have maintained the golden yak reasonably well.
Caprine dairy exploitation on the Iranian Plateau from the seventh millennium BC. Not to mention goats in Iran, and for thousands of years…
Old goats: 3,000 years of genetic connectivity of the domestic goat in Ireland. …and in Ireland, though for not quite as long, admittedly.
Dogs were widely distributed across western Eurasia during the Palaeolithic. And local communities have been managing dog populations since way before farming even.
The dispersal of domestic cats from North Africa to Europe around 2000 years ago. Also, local communities managed early cats separately in the Levant and Egypt. Much later than dogs, but that’s cats for you.
A microbiome catalog of Chinese traditional artisanal cheeses provides insights into functional and microbial diversity. And don’t forget to conserve the associated microbiome too. I wonder what golden yak cheese is like.

April 19, 2026April 20, 2026

We need diverse farms, and genebanks can help

A LinkedIn post by CGIAR stalwart Dr Carlo Fadda convinced me I should give a bit more exposure to a recent paper than the brief Brainfood entry I wrote about it a few weeks ago. The paper is Long-term agricultural diversification increases financial profitability, biodiversity, and ecosystem services: a second-order meta-analysis. Its authors are Estelle Raveloaritiana and Thomas Cherico Wanger, and it was published in Nature Communications this past January.

In that Brainfood, I tried to bring together in a logical thread various studies on different aspects of farm diversity and its benefits. In particular, its effects on diet diversity, and hence health outcomes.

But better diets and human health are not the only pluses of diverse farms, and the paper in question in fact suggests that intercropping, organic farming, and other diversification strategies also increase incomes, biodiversity, pollination, soil quality, and carbon sequestration significantly over 20 years. With, importantly, no downward hit on crop yields. So going diverse — organic, if you will — has many advantages that are not overall associated with a yield tradeoff. And that’s from a meta-analysis of 184 meta-analyses and 120 years of data, so it’s a pretty robust result.

As Dr Fadda points out in his excellent summary of the paper, good evidence that diverse — including agrobiodiverse — farms are good for farmers, consumers and the planet is clearly there. The challenge is to find the institutional will to act on it.

I’d like to add that genebanks around the world are ready, willing and able to do just that. It’s literally their job, or at least a big part of it. I hope they are given the chance — and the resources — to do it.