- China does a census of crop diversity for its genebank.
- Getting birds to help replant forests in early modern Japan.
- Swapping seeds in Bristol.
- The complementary roles of fortification and biofortification.
Brainfood: Spatial data, Extinction risk, Improved lentils, Lentil collection, Ohia germination, Shea genomics, Wild olive, Cacao climate refugia, Cacao sacred groves, Italian winter squash, Nigerian yams, Bambara groundnut diversity
- CropHarvest: A global dataset for crop-type classification. 90,000 datapoints all over the world, nicely labelled with what’s going on there agriculturally speaking. Let the AI rip.
- Using publicly available data to conduct rapid assessments of extinction risk. Pretty much useless, but at least now we know why. Should have used AI.
- Plot-level impacts of improved lentil varieties in Bangladesh. About 15% higher yields and gross margins, resulting in lots of savings on imports.
- Agro-Morphological Characterization of Lentil Germplasm of Indian National Genebank and Development of a Core Set for Efficient Utilization in Lentil Improvement Programs. And a core subset to boot. Unclear if any were used to breed the above.
- Variation in Germination Traits Inform Conservation Planning of Hawaiʻi’s Foundational ʻŌhiʻa Trees. Germination was lower from some populations than from others, but not because of environmental factors.
- Genomic Resources to Guide Improvement of the Shea Tree. Ok, great, but now what exactly? And no word on germination…
- Current Status of Biodiversity Assessment and Conservation of Wild Olive (Olea europaea L. subsp. europaea var. sylvestris). When can we expect something similar for shea tree?
- Extreme climate refugia: a case study of wild relatives of cacao (Theobroma cacao) in Colombia. The forest areas where wild cacao has survived the longest, and is particularly diverse, will be cut in half in 50 years. I wonder what the figures are for wild olive.
- Soil biomarkers of cacao tree cultivation in the sacred cacao groves of the northern Maya lowlands. Maybe re-introduce it? More here.
- How to save a landrace from extinction: the example of a winter squash landrace (Cucurbita maxima Duchesne) in Northern Italy (Lungavilla-Pavia). It’s great to have ‘Berrettina di Lungavilla’ back, but 7 years for one landrace? No sacred groves involved. Shea harvesters unavailable for comment.
- Collection, characterizaton, product quality evaluation, and conservation of genetic resources of yam (Dioscorea spp.) cultivars from Ekiti State, Nigeria. At least it’s more than one landrace.
- Genetic Diversity and Environmental Influence on Growth and Yield Parameters of Bambara Groundnut. 95 landraces, no less. All safe from extinction. Right?
Millet, anyone?
…But millet, a major crop in both Africa and Asia and one of the world’s most nutritious cereals, is now under threat. Production is decreasing and many families have flattened the wooden granaries where they used to store the crop, using them as firewood. A dish of millet bread and pigeon peas-groundnut stew is no longer a common traditional meal in many households.
That’s from a recent BBC Follow the Food feature by Pascal Kwesiga entitled Why we need to expand our crop menu. In addition to finger and pearl millet in Uganda and Kenya, the piece looks at the diversity of grapevine in Portugal, cacao in Brazil and avocado in the USA. There’s also a bit on coffee cryo at the National Laboratory for Genetic Research Preservation at Ft Collins.
Follow the Food is a multimedia series by BBC Future and BBC World News that investigates how agriculture is responding to the profound challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and rapidly growing populations that face our global food supply chains. Follow the Food traces emerging answers to these problems – both high-tech and low-tech, local and global – from farmers, growers and researchers across six continents.
All in association with Corteva (sic).
Nibbles: Wild coffee, Humble potato, Banana seeds video, Citizen Bean, Svalbard, Microlivestock, Transhumance, Exotic tea, BIPOC heirlooms
- The Food Programme does coffee wild relatives.
- Potatoes are not that bad nutritionally.
- Getting banana seeds.
- Want to do citizen science with beans?
- The latest from Svalbard.
- Bugs again?
- Counting sheep.
- Weird tea is the best tea. But any tea will do in a pinch.
- BIPOC communities saving heirloom seeds.
Nibbles: Agroforestry app, Virtual grazing areas, Tunisian herbalists, India agrobiodiversity
- An app to help farmers choose agroforestry species in India.
- An app to keep cows on the straight and narrow in Epping Forest.
- The herbalists of Tunis could maybe do with an app.
- There’s no app to stop agrobiodiversity loss. Even in India.