Category: History

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Nibbles: ICRISAT breeding, India climate change, Seed catalogues, Karabakh horse

  1. New ICRISAT varieties of sorghum, pearl millet and pigeonpea are doing well in drought-hit Kenya. For now, at least: something to keep an eye on. Genebanks and breeding to the rescue?
  2. It’s behind a Times of India paywall, alas, but this seems to be an article about the effects of a very warm February on wheat, vegetables and grapes in that country.
  3. Spring is coming to the northern hemisphere, so of course The New Yorker has a piece on the allure of seed catalogues. I hope there are drought-tolerant and heat-resistant varieties in there. And that they’re clearly labelled as such.
  4. Meanwhile, oblivious of it all, AramcoWorld has an elegiac piece on the revival of the Karabakh horse in Azerbaijan. Beautiful plumage.
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Nibbles: Vavilov, Argentine genebank, Millennium Seed Bank, Indian millets, Community seedbank, Creative finance, Healthy diets, African agriculture

  1. The Living Library of Resilience is a great name for what Nikolai Vavilov put together, and this longish piece from Maria Popova at The Marginalian is a great tribute to a great man.
  2. Vavilov’s example is being followed in Argentina, it seems, with the establishment of another genebank, in Corrientes.
  3. The Millennium Seed Bank reaches an important milestone. Vavilov would be proud.
  4. Can’t help thinking Vavilov would also wholeheartedly approve of grassroots Indian efforts to bring back millets, as usefully summarized The Locavore. Could have said a bit more about genebanks, though.
  5. Even genebanks like that of farmers such as Manas Ranjan Sahu. You don’t have to run an institute like Vavilov to build a genebank.
  6. The Global Alliance for the Future of Food and Transformational Investing in Food Systems Initiative (TIFS) have a report out on Mobilizing Money and Movements: Creative Finance for Food Systems Transformation. No genebanks in there either, alas, but there could so easily have been.
  7. FAO says billions of people in the world cannot afford a healthy diet, and it has the data to prove it. Does that mean genebanks are not doing their job (eg on nutrient dense orphan crops)? Or doing it too well (eg on the major calorie-rich staples)?
  8. African worthies say that we need to ramp up investment in the adaptation of agriculture on the continent to climate change. I hope that will include investment in Living Libraries of Resilience that conserve all manner of interesting local crops and varieties. And creative finance for them of course.
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Brainfood: Why measure genetic diversity?

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Nibbles: Green seeds, Yam bean, Aussie wild tomato, Einkorn trial, US sorghum, Ethiopian forages tricot, Cuisine diversity, Apple catalogue, Hittite crash, Black Death

  1. Let’s say we wanted to transition to a more local and low-input production system in Europe. What seeds would we need and where would we get them from? The Greens/EFA in the European Parliament have some ideas.
  2. IITA is pushing the yam bean in Nigeria. Europe next?
  3. More on that new Australian wild tomato from a couple of years back. With audio goodness.
  4. The largest ever einkorn variety comparison trial makes the German news. Well, makes a press release anyway. Yam bean next?
  5. Another continent, another ancient grain: sorghum in the US. Yam bean next?
  6. The Ethiopia Grass project aims to improve livestock production, food crop yields AND soil quality. The trifecta!
  7. Nice infographics displaying dodgy data on the most common ingredients in different cuisines. Yam bean and einkorn nowhere to be seen.
  8. Cool community-created online catalogue of British apples. Looking forward to the yam bean one.
  9. It was drought that did for the Hittites, not lack of yam beans. Sea Peoples unavailable for comment.
  10. It was Yersinia pestis from Issyk-Kul that nearly did for Europe in the Middle Ages. Yes, you can study the genetic diversity of ancient deadly bugs and well as that of crops like yam bean and einkorn.