I know we’re a day late, but let’s celebrate the International Day for Biological Diversity with antique yeast in a Belgian monastery.
Happy birthday, Bioversity!
Check out the nice anniversary booklet, and listen to the live stream of the celebrations. It’s in just a couple of hours’ time.
Next for Bioversity, of course, is alliance with CIAT, under the guidance of CEO-designate Juan Lucas Restrepo. Best wishes for this important endeavour.
This group of leaders from @BioversityInt and @CIAT_ are putting their energy, bright minds and souls to steer the construction of the Alliance’s Strategic Framework. A huge participatory effort to ensure we thrive and act where society needs us the most. THANKS!! https://t.co/0mFLolctjB
— Juan Lucas Restrepo (@jlucasrestrepo) May 18, 2019
Nibbles: Retiring Ellis, Teff patent, Rice in Bangladesh, Indian wild wheat, Livestock wild relatives, Bambara groundnut, Han diversity, Danone cultures, Drumming, IPBES, World Bee Day, Agroforestry
- Dave Ellis retires, world celebrates. Wait, that came out wrong…
- The Dutch teff patent saga.
- Saving rice diversity in Bangladesh.
- Conserving and using wild wheat in India.
- Livestock have wild relatives too.
- It’s the “minor” crops, stupid.
- The most expensive pistachios in the world.
- Human diversity and domestication in E Asia, summarized in a cool map.
- Open yoghurt.
- The connection between Nigerian music and watermelons. Yes, there is one.
- Summarizing reaction to IPBES.
- Happy World Bee Day.
- Oh, and I almost forgot, follow the livestream of the World Congress on Agroforestry.
It’s Meyer time!
There’s nothing on the website yet, but it looks like Dr Tom Payne, genebank manager at CIMMYT, has been awarded the Frank N. Meyer Medal for Plant Genetic Resources for 2019. This is richly deserved. Congratulations to Tom, who joins a very illustrious club.
Tom will no doubt celebrate in the newly refurbished lobby of the genebank.
This morning at @CIMMYT's HQ, we inaugurated the new lobby of the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center.
The multi-disciplinary team that led this revamp has truly honored the maize and wheat diversity safeguarded in the genebank. pic.twitter.com/bWN33zrRRR— MartinKropff (@KropffMartin) April 26, 2019
Nibbles: Dog & bone, Giant maize, Edible Archive, Myanmar diversification, Colombian community seedbank, Sorghum grande, Coconut exhibit, Chinese ag history, African domestication, Japanese citrus, RivieraLigure DOP, Cactus candy, Hazelnut resistance, American crop rethinks, Public sector engagement
- Nice synthesis of dog (and chicken) domestication.
- Saving the Jala maize landrace in Mexico.
- Saving lots of rice landraces in India by eating them.
- Myanmar does not live by rice alone. And neither does India.
- Saving a whole bunch of stuff in Colombia.
- Saving a sorghum wild relative in Australia.
- How coconuts can help museums decolonize.
- Maybe agricultural development needs to decolonize too. Discuss.
- Africa’s Fertile Crescent is the Niger River Basin. Nice, but we saw that coming first.
- Citrus is big in Japan.
- Olive oil is big in Liguria.
- The visnaga cactus was big in the US Southwest once. As an ingredient in candy, of all things.
- Breeding filberts in the US.
- Tomato 2.0.
- And a bunch of other crops American farmers and breeders are having to adapt to climate change.
- And not just that, they have to deliver better nutrition too.
- Eat what you want, sure. But think what that means for climate change.
- Principles for GAIN engaging with the private sector (in all its diversity) on nutrition. Could be applied to engagement on climate change, I suppose, and crop diversity conservation for that matter. My question, though, is: runaway train, or Titanic?