- The economic impact of CGIAR-related crop technologies on agricultural productivity in developing countries, 1961–2020. In 2020, modern varieties bred by CGIAR or developed by other institutions using CGIAR germplasm were sown on about 190 M ha, about 26% of the total harvested area of these crops in developing countries, and 43% of the total area sown with modern varieties for these crops in developing countries. Yes, cool, but…
- Farming practices to enhance biodiversity across biomes: a systematic review. Less intensive practices generally enhance biodiversity.
- Effects of landscape simplicity on crop yield: A reanalysis of a global database. Simplifying landscapes is associated with lower rates of pollination, pest control and other ecosystem services, and lower crop yields.
- Biocultural diversity and crop improvement. Crop improvement can enhance crop diversity, but doesn’t always.
- Collaboration between Private and Public Genebanks in Conserving and Using Plant Genetic Resources. Vegetable breeding companies can contribute to the conservation of crop diversity by public genebanks, but it takes work on both sides.
- Eight arguments why biodiversity is important to safeguard food security. It’s not “stop hunger first, then worry about diversity afterward”. Or it shouldn’t be.
- Landrace legislation in the world: status and perspectives with emphasis in EU system. Policy can support the conservation and use of landraces. Or not. It’s a choice.
- Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya Protocol: Implications and Compliance Strategies for the Global Coffee Community. Maybe they should consider the Plant Treaty approach?
- The global distribution of plants used by humans. 35,687 of them, and their richness is negatively correlated with protected areas.
Nibbles: Cheese microbes, OSSI, Mung bean, Sustainable ag, Agroecology, Collard greens, African orphan crops, Olive diversity, Mezcal threats, German perry, Spanish tomatoes, N fixation
- A sustainable blue cheese industry needs more microbial diversity.
- The Open Source Seed Initiative gets written up in The Guardian. Looks like we need something similar for cheese microbes.
- The Guardian then follows up with mung bean breeding and fart jokes.
- But then goes all serious with talk of trillions of dollars in benefits from sustainable food systems. Diversity not mentioned, alas, though, so one wonders about the point of the previous pieces.
- Fortunately Indigeneous Colombian farmers have the right idea about sustainability.
- Collard greens breeders do too, for that matter.
- More African native crops hype for Dr Wood to object to. Seriously though, some crops do need more research, if only so they can be grown somewhere else.
- There’s plenty of research — and art for that matter — on the olive, but the international genebanks could do with more recognition.
- The mezcal agave, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have much diversity in genebanks, and it is threatened in the wild.
- Perry culture in Germany is also threatened. Pretty sure there are genebanks though.
- This piece about tomato diversity in Spain is worth reading for many reasons (heroic seed saving yada yada), but especially for the deadpan take on the Guardia Civil at the end.
- Maybe we could breed some of those tomatoes to fix their own nitrogen. And get the Guardia Civil to pay for it.
Diversifying rotations for climate change adaptation and mitigation
Jeremy’s latest newsletter summarizes a summary of a roundup of rotation research from northern China. Bottom line: more crops better.
Anthropocene Magazine has a handy summary of recent research into crop diversity on the North China Plain. Bottom line: adding more crops to the current dominant rotation of wheat and maize increases yields and profits, sequesters more carbon in the soil and reduces overall greenhouse gas emissions.
The researchers added sweet potato and a legume, like soybeans or peanuts, to the rotation and at the same time reduced the amount of synthetic fertilisers applied to the field. Sweet potato is a cash crop that increased farmers incomes by about 60%. Soybeans and peanuts have a lower impact on incomes (13–22% increase) but more than compensated for lower fertiliser inputs. Not surprisingly, lower nitrogen fertiliser results in lower emissions of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas. What was a surprise was an increase in carbon in the soil, perhaps because diverse crops result in more diverse microbial populations which in turn trap atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide.
[D]eveloping and adopting diversified cropping systems should be a key consideration in agricultural policy setting and a top priority for on-farm decision-making.
Projecting the experimental results to the whole of the North China Plain could, the researchers say, increase cereal production by 32% and reduce the need for fertilisers by 3.6 million tonnes. That alone, they say, would reduce China’s greenhouse gas emissions by 6%. And annual farm incomes would increase by 20%.
Nibbles: Genebanks double, Rice landraces, Millet demo, Taro system, EU Seed Law, Food crisis
- Why seedbanks matter.
- But are they hyperlocal?
- Why local rice varieties matter in Bangladesh.
- Why millet matters for climate resilience.
- Why taro matters in Hawaii.
- Why EU seed laws matter.
- Why diversification of food systems matters. Among other things.
Nibbles: Public breeding, Millet Man, Strampelli museum, Ghana community seedbanks, genebank trifecta, CWR, Illegal Canadian potatoes, Açaí GI, Mayocoba bean, Spartan Actinidia, Bitters
- Public sector plant breeders are disappearing.
- The Millet Man of India is still there though. And why he’s important.
- A museum to public sector breeder Nazareno Strampelli appears in Italy.
- Another couple of community genebanks appear in Ghana.
- We can never have too many discussions on the importance of genebanks, so here’s another one. Not much on the community sort, though. Here’s another example: Ireland. Even the Arab States of Asia want one!
- And a deep dive on crop wild relatives in genebanks to round things off.
- A community saves illegal potatoes in Canada. Yeah, I know, there’s a lot to unpack there.
- Maybe that humble illegal potato needs a geographic indication, like that superfood, açaí.
- The Mayocoba bean as a superfood is a bit of a stretch, but there’s plenty of other pulses out there making waves.
- The Michigan State kiwi could probably do with a geographic indication too, come to think of it. Cold-hardy and smooth-skinned? Super!
- Ok, this is probably the last Nibbles before Christmas, so let’s celebrate with a drink: with bitters of course.