Indigenous knowledge systems

April 19, 2022April 25, 2022

The Guardian on the guardians of agrobiodiversity

There’s a big series on agricultural biodiversity unfolding in The Guardian. So far we’ve had the following:

Our food system isn’t ready for the climate crisis, including pithy quote from yours truly.
Seed banks: the last line of defense against a threatening global food crisis, including pithy quote from my boss.
‘We’re running out of time’: Dan Saladino on why the loss of diversity in our foods matters, including numerous pithy quotes from Dan.
Blue corn and melons: meet the seed keepers reviving ancient, resilient crops, including pithy quotes from Roxanne Swentzell and others.

I’m not sure how much more there is to come, but I hope it keeps going a while yet.

LATER: There was indeed more!

April 11, 2022April 7, 2022

Brainfood: Ultra-processed food, Micronutrients, Wheat breeding, Bambara groundnut breeding, Seed longevity, Sheep diversity, Switchgrass ploidy, Seed services, Jersey in Africa, Wine history, Austronesian dispersal

Ultra-processed foods should be central to global food systems dialogue and action on biodiversity. Should.
Global plant diversity as a reservoir of micronutrients for humanity. As.
Mainstreaming grain zinc and iron concentrations in CIMMYT wheat germplasm. Eventually.
Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources of Bambara Groundnut Conserved Ex Situ and Genetic Diversification of Its Primary Genepool for Semi-Arid Production. Insufficient.
More on seed longevity phenotyping. p₅₀.
Gender dynamics around introduction of improved forages in Kenya and Ethiopia. Training.
Whole-Genome Resequencing of Worldwide Wild and Domestic Sheep Elucidates Genetic Diversity, Introgression, and Agronomically Important Loci. Hairy.
Jersey cattle in Africa: From the Breed’s Documented Past to a Profit IndexLinked Future. Promising?
A generalist–specialist trade-off between switchgrass cytotypes impacts climate adaptation and geographic range. Polyploidy!
Decentralized Seed Services in Africa. Quality.
The Rise of Wine among Ancient Civilizations across the Mediterranean Basin. Ritual.
Genome Analysis Traces Regional Dispersal of Rice in Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Ok, I give up, I can’t do this. Austronesian speakers did not spread out of Taiwan because of rice. If you can summarize that in a word, I’m impressed, so let me know.

April 4, 2022April 4, 2022

Brainfood: Digitizing collections, Bean core, Livestock diversity, Maya & maize, Fish stocks & CC, Save the weed, Flax CWR, Italian agrobiodiversity

Cross-validation of a semantic segmentation network for natural history collection specimens. Computers can distinguish the herbarium label from the actual specimen and other stuff on the sheet, helping with the whole automatic digitization thing, but it takes some really fancy math.
The landscapes of livestock diversity: grazing local breeds as a proxy for domesticated species adaptation to the environment. Medium fancy math used to map breed diversity in the Iberian Peninsula for different livestock species and relate it to environmental factors.
South-to-north migration preceded the advent of intensive farming in the Maya region. Sort of like tomato, but in the other direction. Plenty of math involved, but behind the scenes, thankfully.
Timing and magnitude of climate-driven range shifts in transboundary fish stocks challenge their management. Huge amount of data and very fancy math shows fish are in trouble.
A Core Set of Snap Bean Genotypes Established by Phenotyping a Large Panel Collected in Europe. Ok, even I can follow the math on this one.
Assessment of biogeographic variation in traits of Lewis flax (Linum lewisii) for use in restoration and agriculture. Very approachable math shows which populations of a CWR can best be used for restoration, and where; and also for domestication and breeding.
An updated checklist of plant agrobiodiversity of northern Italy. Very useful use of very basic maths. Key number: only 43% of the PGR on the list are conserved ex situ.
Cannabis, the multibillion dollar plant that no genebank wanted. No math needed to figure out weed needs a genebank.

March 31, 2022March 31, 2022

Nibbles: American single malt, Gauguin’s coconut, World Seed Congress, Red gold, Kunming

Will American single malt whiskey be a thing? Depends on the American barley.
Is the fruit in Paul Gauguin’s Eü haere ia oe (Woman Holding a Fruit) a coconut? Have your say.
Will the World Seed Congress sow a brilliant future? We shall see.
Is the oil palm over in West Africa? Depends.
Where are we with that post-2020 biodiversity deal? Nowhere much yet.

March 21, 2022March 21, 2022

Brainfood: Green Revolution narratives, Soybean diversity, Wild barley diversity, Maize and bean breeding, Rice breeding, Apple pedigrees, Trees and diets, ICRISAT genebank, IITA genebank, GHUs, CGIAR policy, Diverse farming, De novo domestication

Epic narratives of the Green Revolution in Brazil, China, and India. Symbols, heroes, heritage-making and we-will-do-it-even-better-next-time in the service of self-preservation and self-assertion. But, as we shall see below, not everything needs to be an epic success to be interesting, and useful.
Using landscape genomics to infer genomic regions involved in environmental adaptation of soybean genebank accessions. Analysis of USDA collection shows that many haplotypes associated with high-latitude cold tolerance in China are still absent from modern American and European cultivars.
Phenotypic evolution of the wild progenitor of cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare L. subsp. spontaneum (K. Koch) Thell.) across bioclimatic regions in Jordan. Re-collecting after 23 years shows some loss of phenotypic diversity.
Decades of Cultivar Development: A Reconciliation of Maize and Bean Breeding Projects and Their Impacts on Food, Nutrition Security, and Income of Smallholder Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Much done, much remains to be done.
Genetic Trends Estimation in IRRIs Rice Drought Breeding Program and Identification of High Yielding Drought-Tolerant Lines. Progress, but not fast enough.
A new method to reconstruct the direction of parent-offspring duo relationships using SNP array data and its demonstration on ancient and modern cultivars in the outcrossing species Malus × domestica. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell which variety is the parent and which the offspring.
What are the links between tree-based farming and dietary quality for rural households? A review of emerging evidence in low- and middle-income countries. Meta-analysis shows that trees can help with diets, but it depends on a lot of things.
Genebanks and market participation: evidence from groundnut farmers in Malawi. Improved peanut varieties derived from genebank accessions encourage market participation by farmers through expanding the area under cultivation, but not the amount sold.
IITA’s genebank, cowpea diversity on farms, and farmers’ welfare in Nigeria. Improved varieties derived from genebank accessions don’t push out landrace diversity and are associated with higher yields and other benefits to farmers.
The role of CGIAR Germplasm Health Units in averting endemic crop diseases: the example of rice blast in Bangladesh. The IRRI Germplasm Health Unit contributed about 2% to the benefits of the rice blast resistance breeding programme, but that’s a cost:benefit ratio of 112.
Policy directions in public agricultural research: CGIAR’s public goods mandate and plant genetic resources. There has been too much focus on the “global” bit of “global public goods,” and opportunities have thus apparently been missed. The three papers above would like a word though.
Landscape complexity and functional groups moderate the effect of diversified farming on biodiversity: A global meta-analysis. Diverse farming systems are better for both agricultural production and biodiversity.
Breeding future crops to feed the world through de novo domestication. Ah yes, we will do it better this time.