- Altitudinal shifts of the native and introduced flora of California in the context of 20th-century warming. Introduced species are better at spreading upward than the native flora.
- Rewilding is the new Pandora’s box in conservation. Step away from the shiny new box.
- Threatened herbivorous insects maintained by long-term traditional management practices in semi-natural grasslands. Because they can’t compete with generalists better adapted to the new-fangled conditions.
- Agricultural landscape simplification reduces natural pest control: A quantitative synthesis. Aphid control 46% lower in simple landscapes with lots of cultivated land, compared to more diverse landscapes.
- Addressing future trade-offs between biodiversity and cropland expansion to improve food security. Expansion could really help with food security, also in importing countries, but is likely to occur in biodiversity hotspots, which means the devil will be in the spatial detail.
- Quantitative analysis of rutin content using silkworm genetic resources. Wait, silkworm powder?
- Genetic Diversity, Population Structure, and Formation of a Core Collection of 1197 Citrullus Accessions. Microsatellites detect differences between American and E. Asian ecotypes and select diverse subset of 130 accessions from Chinese collection.
- Open Source Foodways: Agricultural Commons and Participatory Art. Seeds as art.
- Implications of the Nagoya Protocol for Genome Resource Banks Composed of Biomaterials from Rare and Endangered Species. There are many, some of them unforeseen.
- Functional Resilience against Climate-Driven Extinctions – Comparing the Functional Diversity of European and North American Tree Floras. Loss of species diversity may be decoupled from loss of functional diversity.
Promoting local varieties through fancy cooking
So, did everyone catch the common strand in a lot of Friday’s Nibbles? I’ll give you a couple more minutes to figure it out, so go and have another look…
Yep, it’s the use of local crops and varieties in gourmet cuisine. And by implication the role of high-end chefs and restaurants 1 in conserving them, for example maize landraces in Oaxaca, everything from potatoes to huacatay in Peru, heirloom rice in the Philippines, and, for added piquancy, wild pepper in Madagascar.
Interesting that a number of CGIAR centres are involved in this kind of work. Although CIP is not mentioned by name in the Peru article, they do have form. And the International Year of Pulses presents an opportunity that some at least are grabbing with both hands. Here’s hoping it’s all part of an ingenious system-wide strategy which will do something about pearl millet next. No, wait…
Squashing that old old squash seeds story
As the story goes, some six years ago, during an archeological dig on the Menomonie Reservation, a clay ball was unearthed. It was clear that there was something inside of this clay ball and, when opened, what was found were squash seeds, carbon dated to 800 years old. Some of these seeds were planted and they grew and bore fruit.
You may remember that from an article we Nibbled last summer. Well, sadly, it ain’t so.
It’s a great story, said Kenton Lobe, an environmental studies professor at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Manitoba. And though Lobe can attest to the size of the squash as grown for the last three years by his students at the university’s farm, the rest of the story is untrue, he said.
But the real story is still pretty cool.
Nibbles: Poleward migration, Pulse infographic, Vodka, Ancient horse DNA, Old fish, Certified cacao, On farm book, Coarse millets, Banana diversity, Pearl millet demo
- Species flying poleward.
- FAO unveils pulse infographic. No word on whether any are harvestable by machine.
- Potato farmer adds value the old-fashioned way.
- Talking of old, here’s a really old horse.
- And the oldest evidence of fermentation for food preservation. But you’ll need a strong stomach.
- KitKat is certified crap.
- How (and Why) Farmers Maintain Crop Diversity: The Book. Some reviews.
- And here’s a specific example from India.
- And here, courtesy of Bioversity’s Ann Tutwiler, is why farmers need some help sometimes.
- Oh and here’s another one. People visit ICRISAT genebank in Niger, see stuff they like.
Drying figs, breaking bread
For commercial farmers and state bodies this kind of project currently lacks economic feasibility. But for community gardens, and people who have private gardens, there are other considerations. People who plant a tree in their private garden, or in a pot on their balcony, don’t need an industrial species. They would likely prefer a smaller fruit with a higher sugar content — a tastier fruit — that doesn’t keep that long in the fridge. Farmers have to make a living, but private individuals can plant these fruits and spread the genetic knowledge. Instead of bringing a check to a wedding, why not give the young couple a local fruit tree?
Nice idea, and a reminder that us ordinary people do have agency, and can make a difference — we don’t need to leave all the work to genebanks. The quote comes from Assaf Bashan, a young agronomist working to preserve local fig trees in the Sataf nature reserve near Jerusalem. It closes a recent piece in Haaretz by Ronit Vered, who I have it on good authority is the premier food writer in Israel. She also had another piece about figs late last year, focusing on the efforts by Adi Segal and Amit Pompan from Kibbutz Tzivon in the Galilee to revive traditional food processing methods.
They acquired their knowledge from their neighbors in Jish and by visiting other Arab towns in Galilee and on the West Bank. “We rarely encountered anyone who was angry or surprised at a couple of Jews who wanted to know the secrets of the traditional local customs. There’s politics in the background, but the focus is on love of the land and the fruits in the basket,” says Amit. “People talk to each other about their land, although I’ve had opportunity to conduct profound discussions about the situation and about the gloomy consequences for their private lives. And still these people generously give us the knowledge handed down to them by previous generations.”
Dare one have hope?
Anyway, too bad both articles are behind a paywall. Let me know if you’d like to know more. And Haaretz, I’m told you should translate זן (zan) as “variety” and מִין (meen) as “species.”