- China rehabilitates its grasslands.
- Not content with that, China breeds a new edible lily.
- Not sure what food group lilies are in, but farmers are growing more fruits and vegetables, it seems.
- Still not resting on its lilies, China breeds climate-smart potatoes.
- No doubt CIP and its genebank is helping with that.
- There’s a new book on Vavilov and his genebank. He knew a thing or two about potatoes.
- Ghana is totally on board with the whole genebank thing. And the Dutch are helping.
- Genebanks should hook up with small- and medium-sized enterprises for nutrition. What, not large ones?
- Genebanks also need nice education films on seed production.
- Friend-of-the-blog Colin Khoury interviewed on In Defence of Plants podcast.
- Luxury hotels and restaurants hook up with UNESCO to protect biodiversity. Vavilov would have been so proud.
Nibbles: Tree seeds, Tepary beans, USDA trials, Seed Savers Exchange, China genebank, Nepal indigenous crops, Giant yams, Brogdale, Old apples, AI taxonomy, FEED database, IPBES Nexus report, Business & biodiversity
- Collecting tree seeds properly and respectfully is not easy.
- No word on how easy it is to collect tepary beans respectfully.
- Helping the USDA with their germplasm evaluations, on the other hand, is a breeze. Any tepary beans?
- Seed Savers Exchange makes conserving seeds look easy. Spoiler alert: it isn’t.
- It seems to be very easy to open new national genebanks in China.
- Farming is easier in Nepal with indigenous crops.
- Giant yams don’t look very easy to grow, but that’s not stopping some dedicated Indian women.
- It’s pretty easy — and fun — to visit the United Kingdom’s National Fruit Collection.
- Someone mention apples? Loammi Baldwin knew a thing or two about them.
- It’s going to get easier to identify plants. It says here.
- If you’re looking for interventions or policies to shift diets towards being healthier and more sustainable, your job just got a little easier.
- Likewise if you think the crises of biodiversity loss, water and food insecurity, health risks and climate change should be tackled together.
- Yes, even if you’re a business trying to manage your biodiversity risk you have a right to have it easier. Start by being respectful when climbing trees?
Wild strawberries and other Nordic resources
NordGen is running a great series of weekly webinars on crop wild relatives conservation. You can find recordings of the past three on their website, but I can’t figure out how to sign up for future ones.
LATER: Thanks to Sara for her comment providing the link you’ll need to sign up for future webinars.
Brainfood: CC & livelihoods, Landscape approaches, Seed system metrics, Grain traders, Cultivar adoption, WTP for African rice, Restoration networks
- A systematic literature review on the impact of climate change on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in South Africa. Things look bad, but crop and livestock diversity (among other things) can help. If only they can get out to farmers I guess.
- Reconciling conservation and development requires enhanced integration and broader aims: A cross-continental assessment of landscape approaches. Correction, I meant out into the landscape.
- Towards gender-transformative metrics in seed system performance measurement: insights for policy and practice in Sub-Sahara Africa. How do you know if crop diversity will be able to get into those farming landscapes? You need these gender-transformative metrics. Things like the number of community seed banks serving women and youths, for example.
- Cowpea grain sales by women and men traders in local markets of Senegal. Women seed traders need help scaling up. Maybe community seed banks could help?
- Promoting new crop cultivars in low-income countries requires a transdisciplinary approach. Maybe women seed traders could help.
- An experimental approach to farmer valuation of African rice genetic resources. Farmers are willing to pay as much for landrace seeds as for improved varieties, and those who know about landraces are willing to pay more for their seeds than those who don’t. Good for those women traders to know.
- Restoration seed and plant material supply chains are complex social networks. And not just for restoration, I’d say.
Nibbles: Diverse diets double, WB nutrition, Biodiversity credits, European ag, Indigenous ag, Asparagus varieties, Kenya genebank, CGIAR genebanks, Svalbard, Sierra Leone genebank
- A paean to diverse diets is just what we all need.
- And another one, from the MIT Technology Review of all places.
- Menawhile, there’s only one reference to dietary diversity in the World Bank’s investment framework for nutrition.
- Maybe you have to quantify that diversity before you can save it? Now where have I heard that before?
- Meanwhile, Europe reports on biodiversity-friendly farming practices. Does that include the biodiversity of the actual crops? Perhaps surprisingly, yes!
- You want biodiversity-friendly farming practices? Talk to Indigenous people. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has launched an e-consultation on “Preserving, strengthening and promoting Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems and traditional practices for sustainable food systems.”
- There’s diversity in asparagus too.
- Genebanks can help with those biodiversity-friendly practices, diverse diets and rops and Indigenous practices.
- Even big international genebanks.
- Even the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
- But some are in trouble.
- Though others are coming back.