Genetic erosion

Nibbles: Indigenous plant names, Navajo plant specimens, Vivien Sansour, Canarian papas, GMO chef

Luxury brands discover biodiversity: “There is no champagne without grapes, no ready-to-wear without silk and cotton, no perfume without flowers…”
What about global food and agriculture companies though? Let’s find out, shall we?
TV can help where companies won’t.
Of course, you can set up your own company, as these Tunisian women did.
Imagine a company helping to move a species to “green status.” Imagine.
They could sign the Zero Hunger Pledge for the Private Sector while they’re at it.
But meanwhile, on Ojibwe land…

Safety duplicating a chickpea collection.
Tunisia’s genebank in the news.
Ghana’s genebank trying to save taro.
Using a genebank to improve Elephant grass.
On-farm conservation of rice in Goa.
Molecular tools show that a couple of varieties account for about half the wheat acreage in Bangladesh and Nepal. Hope all the landraces are in genebanks, and safety duplicated.
Celebrating Peruvian pepper diversity.
Peru’s cacao diversity doesn’t need help, apparently.
However, the Amazon’s wild-extracted fruits (including cacao and a wild relative) could be in trouble. Hope they’re in genebanks, just in case.
How the date came to the US. Including its genebanks.
India had a precursor of the Green Wall of Africa but nobody remembers it. Glad it wasn’t used as a genebank of sorts.
Conservation genetics (i.e., most of the above) explained in 48 slides.

New institute to restore ecosystems, including agricultural ones, gets money.
Some olive-based ecosystems certainly need restoration, good thing there are genebanks.
Sometimes, restoring ecosystems means digging up old grapevines and moving them down the road.