Indigenous knowledge systems

May 1, 2026May 7, 2026

When the levee breaks

A piece in The Tribune, an English-language daily out of Punjab, reminded me that we have discussed crop diversity and flooding quite a bit here over the years. The article, entitled “Community seed banks help flood-hit Punjab farmers restore crop productivity,” discusses how an initiative of Punjab Agricultural University supported farmers to establish community-level repositories of crop diversity that are turning out to be useful in recovering from recent flood.

Sharing his experience, Paramjeet Singh, a farmer from Baopur Jadid, said that timely access to quality seeds through the community seed bank enabled him to sow his crop without delay and achieve a yield of around 23 quintals per acre.

Farmers acknowledged that the initiative has significantly reduced reliance on outside seed sources, minimised sowing delays, and improved overall crop outcomes. They are also retaining seed of the new wheat variety PBW 872 for the next season. The initiative has strengthened local seed exchange systems and enhanced community preparedness against climate-related challenges. By ensuring the availability of quality seeds within villages, the Community Seed Bank initiative is contributing to sustainable agricultural development and improving the livelihood security of farmers in flood-affected areas.

A couple of points about this are worth noting.

First, only improved varieties are mentioned in the article, but normally community seed banks will also conserve local landraces. I don’t know if this is the case in Punjab, but I do hope so. As Jeremy put it here all of 15 years ago, in a post on a study of rebuilding cowpea cultivation after flooding in Mozambique, that and similar experiences support “the more general conclusion that seeds already in the local system offer the best chance of restoration.” Although do read the comments to that post. It seems that in another case some farmers weren’t particularly interested in recovering the exact varieties they had lost.

Which brings me to the second point. Which is that I also hope that those community seed banks have good links with the national genebank. This can act both as back-up and as a source of new diversity, as I suggested myself in a more recent post after floods in Pakistan.

April 21, 2026April 20, 2026

Nibbles: Peruvian agrotourism, RSA heirloom apple, Wild tea in China, Native American seeds, Indian chiles, Genebanks, Kenyan tree planting

Agrobiodiversity inspires tourism in the Andes of Peru.
South African fruit exporters does its (small) bit for heirloom apple conservation.
Wild tea doing just fine in the Shunhuangshan National Nature Reserve in Hunan Province, China. Even when harvested by local communities. Looks great for tourism too.
Native communities in Nebraska getting some support for saving and exchanging seeds.
Women are in charge of chiles in Tamil Nadu.
Popular Science does genebanks. At least one genebank has tourism potential, I’d say.
Want to support forest landscape restoration through native tree planting in Kenya? Go to MyFarmTrees, and help keep Kenya a tourism hotspot.

April 20, 2026April 20, 2026

Brainfood: Animal diversity edition

Livestock grazing boosts plant diversity in the Greater Serengeti–Mara Ecosystem. Livestock can be good for biodiversity conservation. But can its diversity be conserved too? Let’s see.
Conservation and Management of Animal Genetic Resources in the Context of African Livestock Production Systems: The Case for In Situ and Ex Situ Conservation. “The multi-stakeholder breeders-researchers-decision-makers approach remains the most robust solution for sound management and preservation of biological units.” What, no farmers and local communities? No, that’s unfair: community-based conservation is discussed. But it doesn’t feel as central to the whole thing as it should be, somehow.
Genetic Diversity, Adaptation, Wild Introgression, and Coat Color Mutation of Golden Yak. After all, local communities have maintained the golden yak reasonably well.
Caprine dairy exploitation on the Iranian Plateau from the seventh millennium BC. Not to mention goats in Iran, and for thousands of years…
Old goats: 3,000 years of genetic connectivity of the domestic goat in Ireland. …and in Ireland, though for not quite as long, admittedly.
Dogs were widely distributed across western Eurasia during the Palaeolithic. And local communities have been managing dog populations since way before farming even.
The dispersal of domestic cats from North Africa to Europe around 2000 years ago. Also, local communities managed early cats separately in the Levant and Egypt. Much later than dogs, but that’s cats for you.
A microbiome catalog of Chinese traditional artisanal cheeses provides insights into functional and microbial diversity. And don’t forget to conserve the associated microbiome too. I wonder what golden yak cheese is like.

April 13, 2026

Brainfood: Diversification edition

Agrobiodiversity for Climate Resilience: A Systematic Review of Yield Stability, Pest Regulation, and Nutrition Outcomes. “…agrobiodiversity emerges as a no-regrets adaptation strategy that strengthens resilience, sustains productivity, and supports nutrition, while creating co-benefits for ecosystems and livelihoods.”
Global impacts of increased undervalued crop production on environmental, economic, and nutrient outcomes. It’s even good for emissions. No regrets indeed. But who’s going to do drive all this diversification?
Impact of a homegardening intervention on crop diversity: results from a cluster-randomized trial in Bangladesh. Homegardeners maybe?
National genebanks as agents of change for supporting farmers’ crop diversification. Oh, I know who else can help.
Expanding the genetic diversity of chickpeas from the Ukrainian genebank to new agricultural systems. Even in a war zone.
The genetic landscape of Pacific taro: diversity, population structure, and strategic germplasm management. Even in paradise.
Influences of territorial conflicts on local crop diversity in a campesino community in the Colombian Caribbean. Because war is bad for agrobiodiversity. No word on the effect of paradise.
Reviewing assumptions around the giant maize Jala landrace locally known as maíz de húmedo: the importance of local knowledge for the in situ conservation of agrobiodiversity. On top of everything, agrobiodiversity can even be iconic.

April 2, 2026March 31, 2026

Nibbles: Crop mapping, Climate change impacts, Rice cheese, Andean blueberry, Rare apples, Hungarian genebank, Old seed collection

AI doesn’t recognize tropical agriculture very well.
So presumably it can’t easily be used in assessing climate change impacts in agricultural heritage systems? FAO has some ideas on how to do it.
Maybe rice heritage systems can be used to make cheese.
I bet Andean blueberry (Vaccinium floribundum) goes great with rice cheese.
But if not, heritage apples will probably do.
The Hungarian genebank is hoping to inject heritage grains into non-heritage agricultural systems. AI and FAO unavailable for comment.
Maybe AI can help with the mystery of this old seed collection at the Natural History Museum, London.