- To diversify or not to diversify, that is the question. Pursuing agricultural development for smallholder farmers in marginal areas of Ghana. Diversify.
- Improving grain yield, stress resilience and quality of bread wheat using large-scale genomics. A genotype –> phenotype map at last. I guess that means breeders are superfluous.
- The earliest recorded tomato in Britain, in Wales. In 1590, no less.
- Biotechnology of the sweetpotato: ensuring global food and nutrition security in the face of climate change. A whole special issue. Our troubles are over.
- Probabilistic global maps of crop-specific areas from 1961 to 2014. A new, different, cooler algorithm provides somewhat different results to older, less cool algorithms.
- Potential adaptive strategies for 29 sub-Saharan crops under future climate change. Climatic conditions not currently experienced by these crops will spread, but CWRs and diversity from outside Africa might help.
- Trans Situ Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives. Just means properly integrated in and ex situ.
- Criar y Dejarse Criar: Trans-Situ Crop Conservation and Indigenous Landscape Management through a Network of Global Food Neighborhoods. See what it means? Scaling up the Parque de la Papa.
- Harnessing global fisheries to tackle micronutrient deficiencies. Small fish from the tropics could be really good for nutrition in some countries. Namibia, I’m looking at you.
- Artificial seed aging reveals the invisible fraction: Implications for evolution experiments using the resurrection approach. Store your seeds properly.
- Status of Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Genepool Collected from Western Ghats Region of India: Gap Analysis and Diversity Distribution Mapping using GIS Tools. Out of 678 rice landraces from this region, 43 have been used in crop improvement.
- Advancing an Integrative Framework to Evaluate Sustainability in National Dietary Guidelines. In 32 sub-dimensions, no less. Important.
- Assembly and characterisation of a unique onion diversity set identifies resistance to Fusarium basal rot and improved seedling vigour. Group according to local daylength.
- Australian wild rice populations: a key resource for global food security. Because they’ve been isolated from the crop.
- Novel method for evaluation of anaerobic germination in rice and its application to diverse genetic collections. No word on whether it’s applicable to Aussie wild species, but I bet it is.
Brainfood: Tea diversity, Sorghum CWR, Wine certification, Salty maize, Broadening cacao, Wild emmer evolution, Wheat breeding, Nutrition info, Indian rice, Dietary diversity treble, Potato enhancement
- Assessment of Genetic Diversity of Tea Germplasm for Its Management and Sustainable Use in Korea Genebank. There’s not enough.
- Crop wild relatives as a genetic resource for generating low-cyanide, drought-tolerant Sorghum. From Australia, of all places.
- Consumers’ preferences for biodiversity in vineyards: a choice experiment on wine. Even buyers of cheap plonk are willing to pay for biodiversity.
- Characterization of natural genetic variation identifies multiple genes involved in salt tolerance in maize. 8 of them, at least.
- Extending the cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) gene pool with underrepresented genotypes: growth and yield traits. Lots of potential for broadening the base of the crop in West Africa.
- Elevated mutation and selection in wild emmer wheat in response to 28 years of global warming. Evolution continues, but not necessarily in a good way.
- Genetic Gains in Wheat Breeding and Its Role in Feeding the World. Focusing on ICARDA and CIMMYT. How much would have been possible without the genebanks?
- Agriculture–nutrition linkages in farmers’ communication networks. You can spread nutrition information through existing agricultural extension channels, but you have to be gender sensitive and some people may be excluded. Twas ever thus.
- Population genetics analyses of North-East Indian indigenous rice landraces revealed divergent history and alternate origin of aroma in aus group. A real melting pot.
- Review: Meta-analysis of the association between production diversity, diets, and nutrition in smallholder farm households. Increasing production diversity won’t always lead to improved diets. But it could.
- Farm-Level Agricultural Biodiversity in the Peruvian Andes Is Associated with Greater Odds of Women Achieving a Minimally Diverse and Micronutrient Adequate Diet. Like here for instance.
- Farm-Level Agricultural Biodiversity Is Not the Principal Contributor to Diverse and Micronutrient-Rich Diets, nor to Overall Food Consumption in Smallholder Farm Households. Or maybe not.
- Potato Germplasm Enhancement Enters the Genomics Era. About time? Or jumping the gun?
Nibbles: Baked beans, Romano-British diets, Roman butcher, Diet data, Israeli wheat, Radish podcast, Oyu Tolgoi, NZ genebank, CWR
- A very British baked bean.
- Hopefully it will prevent the sort of malnutrition for which there is archaeological evidence from Romano-British times.
- Although they did have lots of nice meat.
- “…differences in height by season of birth may not be due to climate-related fluctuations in nutrition or infections…” after all. No, not in Roman Britain.
- Recovering Israeli wheat landraces.
- Recovering a lost beer-snack radish.
- Will traditional Mongolian herding ever recover?
- New Zealand’s genebank in the news.
- The cool uses of potato wild relatives. And wheat too.
Brainfood: Nutrient availability, Afghani wheat, Poverty reduction, Tanzania ag development, Fish refuges, Gender, Cerrado conversion, Rice origins, Global erosion, Food perceptions, Ag & health, Mongolian Allium, Bean disease, Tropical legumes
- Combining the effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide on protein, iron, and zinc availability and projected climate change on global diets: a modelling study. Global net availability to decrease by 15-20% by 2050, mostly where it’s already low.
- Tracking the adoption of bread wheat varieties in Afghanistan using DNA fingerprinting. 75% of samples were varieties released after 2000, landraces are being replaced, and farmers name varieties correctly about 50% of the times.
- Pathways from research on improved staple crop germplasm to poverty reduction for smallholder farmers. Land, land, land.
- “Modern” farming and the transformation of livelihoods in rural Tanzania. Small is still beautiful.
- Analyzing drivers of fish biomass and biodiversity within community fish refuges in Cambodia. Governance, governance, governance.
- The Role of Women in Production and Management of RTB Crops in Rwanda and Burundi: Do Men Decide, and Women Work? Guess. I bet you’re wrong.
- Soy expansion in Brazil’s Cerrado. Forget the Amazon.
- Genomic history and ecology of the geographic spread of rice. Yangtze Valley –> global cooling –> temperate + tropical japonica –> SE Asia –> diversification. Indica is more complicated.
- Estimated six per cent loss of genetic variation in wild populations since the industrial revolution. The new 75%.
- Eating Healthy or Feeling Empty? How the “Healthy = Less Filling” Intuition Influences Satiety. Healthier food is perceived as less filling, unless it’s described as nutritions. People are strange.
- What is the cost of integration? Evidence from an integrated health and agriculture project to improve nutrition outcomes in Western Kenya. Not insignificant, but worth it.
- Traditional utilization and management of wild Allium plants in Inner Mongolia. 38 species, no less; many uses, much threatened.
- Haplotypes at the Phg-2 Locus Are Determining Pathotype-Specificity of Angular Leaf Spot Resistance in Common Bean. Good use being made of the CIAT genebank.
- A decade of Tropical Legumes projects: Development and adoption of improved varieties, creation of market‐demand to benefit smallholder farmers and empowerment of national programmes in sub‐Saharan Africa and South Asia. US$ 67 million in from Gates Foundation, US$ 3.2 billion out in certified seed alone. Read the whole special issue for more. All starts with genebanks, though, doesn’t it. Doesn’t it? Hello? Is there anyone out there? Is this thing on?
Nibbles: Jeanne Baret, Vigna, Musa, Indicators, Livestock, Oranges & lemons, Breadfruit, Seed warrior
- The story of the bougainvillea has a bit of everything.
- The story of the cowpea as told by its DNA.
- The banana has a really complicated story.
- Untangling the story of nutrition indicators.
- Telling the story of why livestock is important.
- The deep story of citrus.
- Another chapter in the story of breadfruit in Jamaica.
- Debal Deb tells his story in NY.