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October 6, 2021March 13, 2025

A very hot spot for agrobiodiversity

You probably heard about the eruption and lava flow on La Palma in the Canary Islands. Or even seen it on Twitter. What you may not know is that there’s an interactive map of it online. And what came as a further — and very welcome — surprise to me is that it allows you to import your own data. That’s quite unusual. Genesys shows 442 georeferenced accessions from the island, and importing their locations suggests that two of them (a pepper and a watermelon) were originally collected from farms that are now in the vicinity of the lava flow.

Does that matter? Probably not, but it was nice to be able to do this sort of mashup quite easily for once. All too often combining spatial data is an almighty chore if you’re not a GIS specialist.

October 4, 2021September 28, 2021

Brainfood: Commons edition

Seeds of resilience: the contribution of commons-based plant breeding and seed production to the social-ecological resilience of the agricultural sector. A seed production commons is good for agroecology and resilience. At least in the German-speaking vegetable sector. Yeah, but give them an inch…
Crop Diversity Management System Commons: Revisiting the Role of Genebanks in the Network of Crop Diversity Actors. …and they’ll take a mile.
Changing patterns in genebank acquisitions of crop genetic materials: An analysis of global policy drivers and potential consequences. Maybe it would be good if they took that mile.
Seeds as natural capital. This is the mile we’re talking about. It’s worth fighting for.
A Critical Review of the Current Global Ex Situ Conservation System for Plant Agrobiodiversity. II. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Current System and Recommendations for Its Improvement. It has become a really complicated mile.
Uses and benefits of digital sequence information from plant genetic resources: Lessons learnt from botanical collections. And this makes it even more complicated.
Impact of climate change on biodiversity and food security: a global perspective—a review article. Yeah, but look what happens if we don’t do something.
Agrobiodiversity Index scores show agrobiodiversity is underutilized in national food systems. And we’re certainly not doing enough.
Endangered Wild Crop Relatives of the Fertile Crescent. See what I mean?
Crop diversity is associated with higher child diet diversity in Ethiopia, particularly among low-income households, but not in Vietnam. Sure, I know it’s complicated…
Insights into the genetic basis of the pre-breeding potato clones developed at the Julius Kühn Institute for high and durable late blight resistance. …but just look what’s possible with a little effort…
Spatiotemporal seed transfer zones as an efficient restoration strategy in response to climate change. …and a little thinking. Well, a lot of effort and thinking.
Current Advancements and Limitations of Gene Editing in Orphan Crops. And on top of all that, we have this to look forward to.
Inactivation of the germacrene A synthase genes by CRISPR/Cas9 eliminates the biosynthesis of sesquiterpene lactones in Cichorium intybus L. Well actually it’s already here.
Living standards shape individual attitudes on genetically modified food around the world. Maybe if they were in a commons? Wait, isn’t this where we started?
Waive CRISPR patents to meet food needs in low-income countries. It does look like it.

September 21, 2021September 21, 2021

Smallholder access to seeds in Africa benchmarked

You’ll remember that the good people at Access to Seeds Index rate seed companies on how and to what extent they make their products available to smallholder farmer in developing countries. Today they launched the results for 32 companies working in Western and Central Africa. Here are the key findings (I’m quoting):

Seed companies are active in almost all index countries across Sub-Saharan Africa and South and South-east Asia.
Many companies are providing more diverse portfolios for vegetables and field crops but need to offer more pulses to help tackle malnutrition.
Leading seed companies are offering extension services in more countries.
Companies are still only concentrating their investments in infrastructure in a few countries.

But you want to know who did well in the rankings, right? Ok, here’s the Top 3.

Well done, Bayer, East-West and Novalliance.

September 21, 2021

More Oz seed conservation resources

I’m not sure what their relationship is to the “Strategies and guidelines for developing, managing and utilising ex situ collections” from the Australian Network for Plant Conservation, which we blogged about a few days ago, but the similarly Australian Florabank Guidelines, “15 modules that roughly follow the seed supply chain,” also seem pretty useful.

September 20, 2021September 28, 2021

Brainfood: Food system, Transformation of, Climate change effects on, Pandemic and, Future of, Effect of Green Revolution on, Mesoamerican CWR, Moroccan crop diversity, USA crop diversity, GM, Environmental behaviours

Food systems: seven priorities to end hunger and protect the planet. Oh good, includes “Biodiversity and genetic bases need to be protected. Seed varieties must be preserved, and their phenotypes and genotypes explored in the contexts of climate change and nutrition. Traditional food and forest systems, including those of Indigenous peoples, need to be better understood and supported in national agricultural research systems.” Phew.
Future Changes in Wet and Dry Season Characteristics in CMIP5 and CMIP6 Simulations. The above is just as well because longer hotter and drier spells are coming to the tropics, and crops will suffer.
Global assessment of the impacts of COVID-19 on food security. Plus there’s this too. Resilience has a cost.
The future of farming: Who will produce our food? Smallholders…
When agriculture drives development: Lessons from the Green Revolution. …and that may be bad.
Ok, the above two entries need unpacking. The second paper shows that the “agricultural engine of growth” was totally a thing during the Green Revolution, but the first that it now appears to be broken.
Extinction risk of Mesoamerican crop wild relatives. Oh no, on top of everything else, we might lose avocados and vanilla.
Determinants of Smallholder Maintenance of Crop Diversity in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains. Markets, land and water. So what would any new Green Revolution do to diversity? Have we learned anything?
Landscape complexity and US crop production. …are positively correlated. For Morocco too, I wonder?
Utilize existing genetic diversity before genetic modification in indigenous crops. At least in Ethiopia.
Compulsion and reactance: Why do some green consumers fail to follow through with planned environmental behaviors? Because some believe in technology, and other is abstinence. Which means they need different messages to encourage them to put their money where their mouths are. Would it work in Ethiopia?