Mainstream

Nibbles: Linux lettuce, Climate intelligence, European ag & CC, Italian forests, Sweet potato chains, Aroid podcast, Beer trifecta, CWR everywhere

Totally forgot if we already linked to this latest pean to open source seed.
Climate-smart agriculture described in three paragraphs.
Hope someone explains it to European farmers, and soon.
Italy is increasingly wooded. But only because farms are being abandoned. Maybe not climate-smart enough?
If only those farms had better links to markets, like in E. Africa…
Dutch food writer on the Jewish (maybe) origins of the Surinamese national dish. Gotta love edible aroids. Jeremy does his podcast thing.
Step 1: Breed your hops.
Step 2: Find a funky yeast.
Step 3: Crack the Kenyan beer market.
Back to real life: USAID’s brand new multisectoral nutrition policy. Now, then, what’s the betting that the agricultural interventions supported by USAID avoided the risks that such things often hold for nutrition (incomes, prices, types of products, women social status and workload, sanitary environment and inequalities)?
SeedMap.org breaks down crop wild relatives.
Somebody mention crop wild relatives? Yes, Sandy Knapp.
Somebody mention parientes silvestres de cultivos? Yes, Nora Castañeda.
How many CWR will go the way of Arabidopsis? Because southern populations of that species in genebanks are already doing better than local populations in northern sites.
How many crop wild relatives in Kew’s meadows?

How to keep seeds dry. Don’t do this at home, folks! No, wait…
Don’t get trapped in the yield gap, researchers told.
Diana Buja breaks down banana brewing.
Night temperatures cross important threshold for rice.
Cultural change does not have to mean genetic erosion and loss of agrobiodiversity knowledge.
Getting youth back into agriculture. Not just about the money.
Latest from the tragic ICARDA situation

Could teff or millets topple wheat, maize and rice? Anyone for unintended consequences?
Not if superior models lead to bigger wheat harvests. ’Cos that’s all it takes.
That and a good book: Yield Gains in Major U.S. Field Crops.
Did somebody mention models? Vorarlberger Bergkäse is a model cheese, and “The rind is the boundary layer between a cheese and its environment”. Welcome to the cheese microbiome.
What’s the difference between a wine grape and a table grape? Simple: Pectic-{beta}(1,4)-galactan, extensin and arabinogalactan-protein epitopes.
Bee biodiversity results in mo’ bigger blueberries. Now to make use of that.
Seed policy wonks – you know who you are – will thrill to IFPRI’s new report: The seed industry in Pakistan.
So how does that square with the Financial Express of Bangladesh’s discovery that “Agro biodiversity can improve nutrition and health”?
How to make baobab juice. Time to edit those factsheets.

Sometimes all it takes is a goat.
Or a camel.
I wonder how either would figure into a metric for a sustainable diet. Wonder if these people will be interested in those metrics.
Cassava figures in lots of different ways.
No word on whether carbon dioxide will affect its nutrient content the way it does with other crops.
Who cares, it’s yield we’re after. Well, that’s in trouble too in some parts of Africa.
That’s the only way those African seed start-ups are going to survive.
Yeah, but disease resistance is important, Shirley. PlantVillage gets a blog.
And weeds? Don’t forget the weeds. Although of course some of them you can eat. Put that in your metrics.
Meanwhile, France starts to re-wild. Would love to see some wild relatives in the Bois du Boulogne. Livestock wild relatives, not your crazy cousin on his gap year.
And now we can figure out what climate change might do to them. I guess this thing might work for European animals. Says here it works for Australian trees.
Speaking of France, garlic is quintessentially French, isn’t it? Well, maybe, but it’s also very Korean, in its black, cured form.

Farming cobia off Panama. Look it up.
Gene editing is the future. But is it GM?
More on the CIMMYT genebank from the Australian press. Get a room already.
Fancy machine can tell fancy Yemeni coffee from lesser stuff. No, not DNA. Producers of lesser stuff unavailable for comment.
Some of them may end up being photographed by National Geographic though.
Before being forced off their land.
Different sort of land grab in the Gran Chaco. Pity those poor wild Arachis. And here’s a meta-analysis of the drivers of the problem.
Feeling left out, herders get fancy photos too.
“The data indicates a broad distribution of this clone from Spain to Russia and Scotland to Cypress.” Good grief. Potato blight, if you’re still interested.
From household survey data to food security assessment: The software.
The bubbleberry is increasingly a thing.