Intellectual property rights

September 25, 2025September 27, 2025

‘Cima di cola’ reaches a milestone, apparently

So it seems the first vegetable variety from Puglia has been added to Italy’s Registro nazionale delle varietà da conservazione, or National Register of Conservation Varieties.

The ‘Cima di cola’, a cauliflower variety historically linked to the agricultural tradition of Bari, received official recognition by Ministerial Decree of 9 September 2025, published in the Official Gazette No. 216 of 17 September 2025, which will allow its conservation and promotion also at the commercial level.

I know this because of a post on Facebook from an outfit called Biodiversità delle specie orticole della Puglia (BiodiverSO), translated above. Which unfortunately doesn’t include a link, but does provide this screenshot of Italy’s Official Gazette to prove its point.

Here’s more from the BiodiverSO post.

The inclusion of the ‘Cima di cola’ among conservation varieties is not only an institutional achievement, but also an act of recognition toward those who have preserved its seeds and traditions over the years; a milestone that opens new opportunities for scientific, educational, and gastronomic promotion, which we look forward to sharing with you.

Doubtless.

Which is why I was pretty disappointed to find that the Registro nazionale delle varietà di specie agrarie ed ortive is not actually up to date, so doesn’t yet include ‘Cima di cola’.

Quite apart from not being exactly easy to find. And there was also nothing in the relevant news section, which is actually on a different website, but nevermind.

Anyway, there are 135 “Varietà da Conservazione” registered therein. It’s unclear how to obtain seeds.

LATER: Thanks to Filippo Guzzon for advising me that ‘Cima di cola’ is indeed on the list. I was looking for it under the wrong crop name :(

May 7, 2025

Brainfood: CC & crop diversity, Dietary Species Richness, CC & banana, European genebank representativeness, Effective Population Size, VarScout, Borlotti bean diversity, Oaxacan? Green Dent, Sorghum mucilage, Gut bacterial diversity

Climate change threatens crop diversity at low latitudes. At low latitudes maybe about a third of the production of 30 major crops shifts outside their climatic niche under 2-3°C global warming, and potential food crop diversity declines on half of global cropland, but potential diversity increases elsewhere. So that’s all good then?
Dietary species richness provides a comparable marker for better nutrition and health across contexts. Dietary species richness (DSR) can be used as a marker for the nutrition and health. If DSR is related to production diversity, I guess that could mean trouble at lower latitudes?
Socio-economic factors constrain climate change adaptation in a tropical export crop. Actually the reduction in suitable area is 60% for banana. And there’s a decline in yield too. Unclear what that will do to DSR.
Plant evolutionary history is largely underrepresented in European seed banks. Would be interesting to apply this specifically to crops. Or even just crop wild relatives.
The Idiot’s Guide to Effective Population Size. Can this be usefully applied to crops? I’d like to see how banana comes out.
Digital Revolution in Farmer Fields: VarScout Unveils Kenya’s Varietal Landscape – The Case of Potato. I’d like to see how banana comes out.
Genetic Diversity and Distinctiveness of Common Beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Between Landraces and Formal Cultivars Supporting Ex Situ Conservation Policy: The Borlotti Case Study in Northern Italy. It’s difficult, but not impossible, to distinguish — and maintain — landraces of Borlotti beans apart from obsolete and modern cultivars. I wonder if VarScout would help.
Oaxacan Green Dent maize is not from Oaxaca. Watch out for landrace names.
Mucilage produced by aerial roots hosts diazotrophs that provide nitrogen in Sorghum bicolor. Not just maize. And another aspect of diversity to have to worry about.
Cryptic diversity of cellulose-degrading gut bacteria in industrialized humans. And another… What’s the interaction with DSR though?

October 28, 2024October 26, 2024

Brainfood: Heraclitus, Cocoyam, Pollen, Dry chain, DSI, Global Biodiversity Framework

Will a plant germplasm accession conserved in a genebank change genetically over time? Sure, change is inevitable, but it can be minimized, and some can be accepted.
Cocoyam (Xanthosoma sagittifolium (L.) Schott) genetic resources and breeding: a review of 50 years of research efforts. Conventional breeding, based on inducing flowering, is possible, but will require more international exchange of germplasm. I hope someone is saving the seeds.
Pollen banking is a critical need for conserving plant diversity. Even if it changes genetically over time.
Applications of dry chain technology to maintain high seed viability in tropical climates. You’ve got to dry your seeds fast and hard. Probably your pollen too, come to that.
Harmonize rules for digital sequence information benefit-sharing across UN frameworks. The big question is, should there be a single trigger point for monetary benefits, or separate ones for each treaty? At least the sequences do not change over time. But what about if the accessions from which they are derived do?
Involving citizens in monitoring the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Yes, let’s get citizens to help us monitor all that change.

October 17, 2024

Nibbles: IUCN report, Land Institute, Climate smart beer, BioLeft seeds, Cryo coral

Big IUCN report says that biodiversity and agriculture are in conflict, they don’t really need to be, but it’s really complicated for them not to be. So that’s us all told.
If only annual crops were perennial, for example, eh?
If only we incorporated more sustainable agriculture in education, for example, eh? Apart from anything else we could still have beer. No word on the role of perennial barley though.
If only improved seeds were open source, for example, eh?
If only we could cryopreserve coral, for example, eh? Wait, what?

September 30, 2024September 30, 2024

Brainfood: EU landraces, EU GIs, Citizen fruit scientists, Nordic potatoes, Czech wheat, German wheat, Wild Brassica collecting, Chinese & European soybeans, Italian goats

Landrace in situ (on-farm) conservation: European Union achievements. Lots of organizations and farmers are conserving landraces in Europe, in lots of ways, and pretty successfully, but the most sustainable way to do so would be to decrease barriers to their marketing, in particular in the context of organic agriculture.
An assessment of the implementation of the EU policy for conservation varieties from 2009 to 2023 and its relationship to Geographical Indications. Few European GIs use conservation varieties (i.e. landraces), but this should, and probably will, change.
New citizen science initiative enhances flowering onset predictions for fruit trees in Great Britain. Imagine doing this for European landraces.
Genetic markers identify duplicates in Nordic potato collections. Ooops, some alleged landraces in European genebanks turn out to be old improved varieties.
Curation of historical phenotypic wheat data from the Czech Genebank for research and breeding. You need data on all those landraces if people are going to use them. Citizen scientists might help, I guess.
Trait-customized sampling of core collections from a winter wheat genebank collection supports association studies. But you need to use that data to create subsets first, and you can do that in lots of different ways, for different purposes: let the German genebank show you how.
Collecting Mediterranean wild species of the Brassica oleracea group (Brassica sect. Brassica). Even in Europe some gap-filling collecting is still necessary.
A comparison of Chinese wild and cultivar soybean with European soybean collections on genetic diversity by Genome-Wide Scan. Even breeders in the soybean center of diversity might find material from Europe’s genebanks useful.
Can Sustainability and Biodiversity Conservation Save Native Goat Breeds? The Situation in Campania Region (Southern Italy) between History and Regional Policy Interventions. Conservation livestock breeds, anyone?