- Pigs as Pets: Early Human Relations with the Sulawesi Warty Pig (Sus celebensis). You don’t need to be a sedentary agricultural society to domesticate an animal as a pet. There was the dog, and also the Sulawesi Warty Pig.
- Conflict, violence, and warfare among early farmers in Northwestern Europe. Early sedentary agricultural societies were not exempt from violence, pets or no pets.
- The earliest cotton fibers and Pan-regional contacts in the Near East. At least early sedentary agricultural societies did all that fighting wearing comfortable cotton garments.
- How animal dung can help to reconstruct past forest use: a late Neolithic case study from the Mooswinkel pile dwelling (Austria). In between spells of fighting, early sedentary agricultural societies let their livestock roam the forest during the day but kept them in their settlements in winter, and that accumulates a lot of dung that can come in useful thousands of years later in working out what said livestock ate in said forest.
- Between Cereal Agriculture and Animal Husbandry: Millet in the Early Economy of the North Pontic Region. You didn’t need to be a completely sedentary agricultural society to grow Panicum miliaceum in the Pontic steppes.
- Opium trade and use during the Late Bronze Age: Organic residue analysis of ceramic vessels from the burials of Tel Yehud, Israel. There comes a time when a sedentary agricultural society will start growing, and then selling, drugs.
- A Sacred Tree in the Boreal forest: A Narrative About a Sámi Shaman, her Tree, and the Forest Landscape. You don’t need to be a sedentary agricultural society and grow drugs to have a rich spiritual life, but it’s harder — though not impossible — to document it.
- Historic samples reveal loss of wild genotype through domestic chicken introgression during the Anthropocene. Sedentary agricultural societies are polluting the genetics of wild species related to domesticates. The chicken in this case, the Sulawesi Warty Pig unavailable for comment.
Food diversity, every day
Yet another thoroughly satisfying Eat This Newsletter from Jeremy. Here are two snippets on crop diversity, but there’s lots more…
Talking about Eating to Extinction
Dan Saladino’s book Eating to Extinction has justifiably won all sorts of awards since it came out about 18 months ago. Capitalising on that and the interest more generally in vanishing foods and ingredients, Dan and his chums put together a Food Diversity Day on 13 January. I was unable to watch any of it for a host of reasons, but a post by Patricia Bixler Reber on her marvellous Researching Food History website reminded me that all of it is now online. There’s probably enough there to keep you busy for a good long while, and if there isn’t, Researching Food History is always good for a suggestion or two. I’d already booked for one on 31 January that promises to be a bit of a myth-buster (and that may yet become an episode).
Preserving Potato Diversity
Dan Saladino doesn’t devote an awful lot of space to the always-humble potato, which is by no means a criticism; there is so much more to be concerned about. But I suspect he is well aware of some of the more exotic potatoes of the Andes and beyond, with their colourful flesh and skin. Diverse efforts to promote these varieties, by encouraging high-end restaurants as much as low-grade snacks, have had some success in Peru. The latest brings Ecuador into the fold, with crisps/chips made from ancestral varieties known locally as black heart and red heart. The tubers are grown by a collective of 180 small farmers, who are guaranteed a stable price for their crop. I hope they use some of that cash to improve their family nutrition.
And if you’re a gardener with a hankering for some creative potato diversity of your own, I highly commend true potato seed; read a bit about it thanks to Modern Farmer.
Nibbles: Fonio commercialization, Naked barley, Food books, Ag decarbonization, Nepal NUS, Millets & women, Crop diversity video, Maize god, Cherokee genebank, CWR, Japan genebank
- A Nigerian company is pushing fonio as the next global super-food. What could possibly go wrong?
- Personally, I think naked barley has a better chance.
- Humanities scholars recommend their favourite new books on food systems. I bet there will soon be one on fonio.
- Food and agriculture analyst at the Breakthrough Institute pens whole essay on how there should be public investment in moving agriculture from productivity gains to decarbonization without mentioning fonio.
- Well Nepal has orphan crops of its own and doesn’t give a fig for your fonio.
- Blogpost highlights the role of women in the cultivation and conservation of millets in Tamil Nadu.
- ISSD Africa video on the advantages of growing a diversity of crops, especially under climate change. Fonio, anyone?
- What does maize have to do with turtles? Gather round, children…
- The Cherokee Nation’s genebank is open for business. Maize available. No turtles.
- Long article on collecting, conserving and using crop wild relatives, including by Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank. Could fonio do with some diversity from its wild relatives? I suspect it’s not a huge priority, but maybe it will become one.
- It’s unclear how much diversity of orphan crops is in Japan’s high-tech genebank, but I bet it’s quite a bit. Fonio, I’m not so sure though. Maybe someone will tell me.
Nibbles: Eating to Extinction, Livestock Conservancy, Pastoral diversification, Donkeys, ICARDA, USDA, Native Seeds/SEARCH, Duragna, Baked bean bread, Kenosha Potato Project, Landrace marketing, Gene editing
- All the videos from the recent Eating to Extinction event in London celebrating food diversity.
- If you want to eat rare breeds or their products, the Livestock Conservancy has a website for you.
- ILRI policy brief on how pastoral systems can usefully diversify.
- The BBC rounds up the history of the domestication of the donkey without, alas, mentioning the Livestock Conservancy or pastoral diversification. Spoiler alert: ancient Roman donkeys were really big.
- NPR interviews the manager of the ICARDA genebank in Lebanon.
- Local Oregon paper visits the USDA genebank in Pullman.
- It’s the turn of the Native Seed/SEARCH genebank to feature in the news.
- Want to know what “duragna” is? This press release from Cornell will explain all. I think we included the original paper in a recent Brainfood, but I can’t be bothered checking. Anyway, trust me, it’s interesting. Spoiler alert: it has to do with cereal diversity.
- Brits told to grow more faba beans and use them to make bread. Census takers not available for comment.
- Fascinating project on the history of saffron cultivation in eastern England. Now that would spice up all that faba bean bread.
- The Kenosha Potato Project deconstructed to within an inch of its life by Modern Farmer. We’ve blogged about this innovative breeding project here before, have a look. Ah no, I just have, and in fact we haven’t, though we have blogged about William Whitson, an independent tuber breeder, who is however a long-time member of KPP.
- Meanwhile, in Peru, local potato landraces are finding a new market via chips/crisps. Pretty sure we’ve blogged about this too. We are so on the ball.
- Gene editing for conservation? Yes, why not? But nothing on crop and livestock species in this succinct explainer, alas.
Brainfood: Sustainable diets, Resilient food system, IK in food systems double, Herbarium double, Ag research priorities, Fruits & vegetables, Cryopreservation, Diverse diets, Gene editing orphan crops, Ag revolution 4.0, Diversification, Monoculture, Agroecology, Regenerative ag, Plant health, Svalbard, Seed banking theory, Comms double
- Interventions for sourcing EAT-Lancet diets within national agricultural areas: A global analysis. Half the world’s population can eat healthily off the land in their own country, and 95% could.
- Reframing the local–global food systems debate through a resilience lens. Yeah, but there’s more to resilience than local vs global.
- Indigenous knowledge is key to sustainable food systems. Local people know all about sustainability and resilience.
- Global principles in local traditional knowledge: A review of forage plant-livestock-herder interactions. Yes, even — especially? — pastoral people.
- Using botanical resources to select wild forage legumes for domestication in temperate grassland agricultural systems. Not that said local people might not need a little help…
- The herbarium of the future. …for example from the herbarium of the future. Which actually sounds a lot like the genebank of the future.
- Multidimensional impacts from international agricultural research: Implications for research priorities. You want income growth? Invest in fruit and vegetables research and development. You want anything else? Cereals.
- Safeguarding and Using Fruit and Vegetable Biodiversity. Somebody mention fruit and vegetable R&D? Here’s how to start. Spoiler alert: the genebank of the future…
- In Vitro Conservation through Slow Growth Storage Technique of Fruit Species: An Overview of the Last 10 Years. …will need to be into cryo.
- Does the high dietary diversity score predict dietary micronutrients adequacy in children under 5 years old? A systematic review. This is why we need fruits and vegetables. But to eat them, not just to grow lots of them. How many of these kids are on the EAT-Lancet diet anyway?
- Integrating genomics and genome editing for orphan crop improvement: a bridge between orphan crops and modern agriculture system. And lots of fruits and vegetables are so-called orphan, and might need a helping hand, I suppose.
- The old, the new, or the old made new? Everyday counter-narratives of the so-called fourth agricultural revolution. A helping hand from technology you mean? Maybe, but best to mistrust grand narratives.
- Achieving win-win outcomes for biodiversity and yield through diversified farming. Adopting orphan crops can be route to farming system diversification, which can be good for both yields and biodiversity. How’s that for a grand narrative?
- Rapid transgenerational adaptation in response to intercropping reduces competition. Staple crops bred are adapted to monoculture? Not necessarily.
- Agroecology in the North: Centering Indigenous food sovereignty and land stewardship in agriculture “frontiers”. All this diversification is beginning to sound a lot like some kind of agroecology. Even in the Global North. And I mean very North.
- Regenerative food systems and the conservation of change. Ok, but agroecology is not about the practices employed, but rather how the system is organized. Always good to occasionally step back and theorize.
- Sustainable management of transboundary pests requires holistic and inclusive solutions. None of the above is going to work if we’re knee-deep in pests.
- The eternal return: Imagining security futures at the Doomsday Vault. Apocalypse. Hope. Escape. No grander narrative than that for the most iconic genebank of the present.
- Carrier Seeds: A Cultural Analysis of Care and Conflict in Four Seed Banking Practices. Genebanks (maybe even Svalbard?) conserve more than just seeds: the theory and the practice deconstructed.
- Why facts don’t change minds: Insights from cognitive science for the improved communication of conservation research. Ok, but how to communicate all the above for maximum impact? Spoiler alert: forget about disseminating scientific facts widely to change individual minds. Instead, target the behaviour of strategic groups through values and emotions…
- Spread the word: Sharing information on social media can stabilize conservation funding and improve ecological outcomes. …using social media. Wait, does that mean I have to TikTok all this stuff now?