- Book alert: Biodiversity, Food and Nutrition — A New Agenda for Sustainable Food Systems.
- Thread alert: Monumental analysis of crop yield trends in the USA.
- Woke alert: WorldVeg ticks a lot of boxes with its work on a peppers core collection.
- Policy alert: Why haven’t farmers’ varieties found a place in national and global seed markets?
Nibbles: Fennel, Cicer, OPV, Monoculture, Gene editing policy, Post 2020, Polman
- Oh no, fennel is in trouble now.
- Aussies using chickpea wild relatives.
- Seeds are the new toilet paper.
- Backing up potatoes.
- What has the Green Revolution ever done for us?
- Getting away from bipolarity in discussing gene editing.
- Paul Smith challenges biodiversity conservation NGOs.
- Ex CEO of Unilever challenges business to align with SDGs.
Brainfood: Bull, Durum, W2Px2, Urban hort, Maya ag, Nepal PGR, Bean GWAS, Pig landrace, DSI
- Reconstitution and modernization of lost Holstein male lineages using samples from a gene bank. Because all today’s bulls tracing back to exactly 2 born in the late 1880s is really not a very good thing.
- Comparative population genomic analyses of the reconstructed local breed “Nero di Parma” with other commercial and autochthonous Italian pig breeds. I like the idea of reconstructing a breed, but this one needs some more work or it will end up as the above.
- Durum wheat in the Mediterranean Rim: historical evolution and genetic resources. What have the Romans ever done for us? Well…
- Drinking biodiversity: a choice experiment on Franciacorta sparkling wines. Willingness to pay for biodiversity friendliness of high value products has its limits.
- Benefits of conserving agricultural genetic resources in Finland: Summary of the recent Finnish research and setting it in the international context. Still, there is some willingness to pay.
- The hidden potential of urban horticulture. Yes, even in Sheffield.
- Maize Politics and Maya Farmers’ Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Yucatán, 1450–1600. The sustainability of milpa depends on politics. ‘Twas ever thus.
- Genomics-assisted breeding for pigeonpea improvement. How do you know when you have enough genomics data?
- Agrobiodiversity and its Conservation in Nepal. 25,000 accessions around the world. But are they enough?
- Genetic Associations in Four Decades of Multi-environment Trials Reveal Agronomic Trait Evolution in Common Bean. 2 large genomic regions have been ruthlessly selected in relentless pursuit of the ideotype. Doesn’t sound like enough.
- Implications of biological information digitization: Access and benefit sharing of plant genetic resources. “The solution lies in an international institution stepping forward, with a bold vision and strong mandate, capable of resolution.” Good luck with that.
Nibbles: Purple, Emirati bees, MJ Bale, Solanum jamesii, Olive genebank, Victoria genebank, Kampot pepper
- Murex from Meninx.
- Breeding a better bee.
- Menswear retailer to dabble in sustainable livestock.
- There was a fourth sister.
- A world olive collection in Spain.
- “If we can assume the fire pattern is as bad as the stuff we see on TV, I reckon at this very moment there is a goodly sized handful of species that are technically extinct right now.” At least in the wild.
- Cambodia’s world-beating peppercorn makes a post-post-colonial comeback.
Nibbles: GB8, Aqueduct, Soviet tea, Tilapia virus, Quelites, NUS, Golden Thread, China Neolithic, Organic maize
- Virginia Gewin on GB8.
- Mapping water risks around the world.
- The decline and rise of Georgian tea.
- Virus hits tilapia. A lot of people could be hurt.
- Amaranthus in Mexico.
- Just one of many relatively neglected crops around the world that shouldn’t be.
- How wheat took over China. That was kinda underused at first too.
- Long webinar on organic maize breeding. Amaranthus next?
- The rise of fabric.