- Why the modern food system prizes uniformity even though resilience depends on diversity. Spoiler alert: follow the money.
- Historic crop varieties are finding renewed relevance as farmers contend with more volatile weather, emerging pests and changing markets. Let’s hope there’s money to conserve them.
- India’s traditional wheat varieties contain diversity that could help breeders develop crops better able to withstand heat and drought. Let’s hope there’s money to conserve them.
- India announces significant progress in conserving its wild rice genetic resources. Great that there was money to conserve them.
- Community seed banks across Kenya are calling for formal recognition and sustained support, arguing that locally managed collections strengthen seed sovereignty, preserve traditional varieties and help farming communities adapt to climate change. Yes, but are they enough without national genebanks?
- Researchers are racing to conserve wild coffee species whose genetic diversity may provide the resistance and resilience needed to secure tomorrow’s morning cup. Is the industry contributing, though ?
- New history of the macadamia traces its remarkable journey from Australia’s native forests to a global crop, while underscoring why conserving the remaining wild populations is essential for the crop’s long-term future.
- Researchers at the University of the South Pacific investigate how taro can withstand climate change, combining research with conservation to help protect one of the region’s most culturally and nutritionally important staple crops.
- Chester Zoo collects seeds from highly threatened cacti, because why not?
Playing around with wild potatoes
Journey through 1946’s South America to find and collect wild potato plants, which might hold the key to defeat the blight affecting British crops.
Choose your route, solve puzzles, and learn more about the world of potato biodiversity. But be careful not to run out of resources or you’ll have to cut your expedition short!
That’s all the introduction you get to a new online game from Abertay University and the James Hutton Institute, but it’s clearly inspired by Jack Hawkes’ famous potato collecting expeditions to South America. The resulting Empire Potato Collection, now called the Commonwealth Potato Collection, is still maintained at the Hutton. Our friend Mike Jackson has blogged very comprehensively about it, and also about his own efforts following in the footsteps of Prof. Hawkes.
Let’s see what Mike thinks about the game. I found it a little tricky to get into, though mildly entertaining once I did. But I never collected wild potatoes.
Ube careful what you wish for
You know a crop has arrived when The Economist does a piece on it. Ube (Dioscorea alata), the purple yam long cherished in the Philippines, is indeed suddenly everywhere, and the newspaper for the global elite is all over it. From Starbucks drinks in Britain to specialty bakeries in Europe and North America, it has become the latest social-media-friendly food trend. Some commentators are already calling it “the new matcha.” Global demand is rising rapidly, and Filipino farmers are struggling to keep up.
This looks like the kind of success story we often hope for as agricultural biodiversity advocates: a neglected or underutilized crop finally finding big markets. Researchers are developing improved varieties, governments are increasing investment in research and development, and scientists are working on better propagation methods to overcome shortages of planting material. Some farmer groups have reportedly seen orders jump from hundreds of kilograms to tens of tonnes. What’s not to like?
Well, before we celebrate too loudly, it is worth remembering that similar “opportunity crops” have started on this road before. It can be a bumpy one.
The first challenge is biological. Ube is not an industrial commodity. It is seasonal, labor-intensive, relatively slow to mature, and constrained by shortages of high-quality planting material. Current efforts to develop improved varieties and rapid propagation techniques are responses to real bottlenecks, not merely opportunities.
The second problem is economic. Today’s enthusiasm is driven partly by novelty and social media visibility. Food history is littered with once-fashionable ingredients that enjoyed a brief boom before consumers moved on to the next trend. If ube is indeed the new matcha, what happens when the next matcha arrives?
Finally, there are legitimate concerns about diversity itself. Commercial success often narrows the genetic base of a crop as supply chains converge on a small number of elite varieties. Ironically, a boom can threaten the very diversity that made a crop valuable in the first place.
None of this means we should resist ube’s moment. On the contrary, it presents a rare opportunity to reward farmers, strengthen local value chains, and invest in conservation and breeding. But history suggests that the goal should not be to maximize production for a transient craze. It should be to use today’s demand to build a resilient and diverse ube sector that can survive after the craze fades.
Don’t just feed the boom. Try to avoid the bust. More tomato, less quinoa, you could say.
Papas bravas
Among the gems Jeremy has included in his latest Eat This Newsletter are an essay on the potato in Belarus and a visual guide to the peppers of the world. Very tasty.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition to help opportunity crops
The latest episode of Eat This Podcast explores why the tomato, first recorded in England in the 1590s, took more than a century to become an important food. The explanation offered was that it took a combination of factors: a somewhat warmer climate, the movement of people and culinary traditions caused by the Spanish Inquisition, and its connection with another New World crop, the chile pepper. Do listen to the episode, it’s a fascinating story.
What struck me most about it was how little of the tomato’s eventual success depended on technology. Sure, glasshouses and fermenting horse dung helped, but so did luck and recipes.
Today, discussions about agricultural diversification often emphasize research, breeding, seed systems and value chains. The recent paper on the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS), for example, lays out an ambitious roadmap to transform Africa’s Cinderella “opportunity crops” through investment in breeding, seed delivery, agronomy, markets and policy support.
There is much to admire in that vision. Many neglected crops undoubtedly suffer from decades of underinvestment. Better varieties, better seed systems and better market access could surely make a substantial difference.
Yet the tomato’s history offers an interesting counterpoint.
The tomato did not become a success in England back in the early 1700s because somebody developed an improved variety. It did not require a major breeding programme. It was not the product of a coordinated development initiative. Rather, its rise seems to have depended largely on changes in climate, cuisine and culture. People learned how to use it. They incorporated it into recipes. It found a place within evolving food traditions.
In other words, the tomato became important because food systems adapted to it, not because the crop itself was somehow transformed.
This is not an argument against VACS. Rather, it is a reminder that technological interventions are only part of the reason why crops become successful. History suggests something else is needed too.
The tomato spread because it became embedded in dishes that people wanted to eat. The chile pepper may have played a role in that process, helping to create new flavour combinations and culinary traditions in which tomatoes made sense.
For some of Africa’s opportunity crops, the principal constraint may well be genetic improvement. For others, however, the limiting factor may lie elsewhere. Middle-class consumers may not know how to prepare them. Urban markets may not value them. Food processors may not see commercial opportunities in them. In such cases, the most effective intervention may not be a breeding programme but a chef, an entrepreneur, a recipe book or a social media campaign.
The VACS paper rightly argues that there should be “no romance” about opportunity crops. But perhaps there should also be no assumption that technological tweaking is always the decisive factor.
The history of the tomato suggests that crops can sometimes become important without being substantially “improved” at all. What matters is whether societies discover compelling reasons to grow, sell, cook and eat them.
That is a useful reminder that agricultural diversification is ultimately as much a cultural process as a technological one. Though we could probably do without the Spanish Inquisition.