- Phylogenetics and evolution of Digitaria grasses, including cereal crops fonio, raishan and Polish millet. The history of wild Digitaria goes back 2–6 million years.
- Biogeography of Crop Progenitors and Wild Plant Resources in the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene of West Asia, 14.7–8.3 ka. This is what the distribution of crop wild relatives looked like in West Asia 10 thousand years ago or thereabouts. No Digitaria, but plenty of other stuff.
- Ancient use and long-distance transport of the Four Corners Potato (Solanum jamesii) across the Colorado Plateau: Implications for early stages of domestication. At roughly the same time, a couple continents and an ocean over, a local potato species was being processed outside its rage. Was it cultivated? Do the math.
- State formation across cultures and the role of grain, intensive agriculture, taxation and writing. And a few thousand years later, there were domesticated grains, states, and taxes. In that order. Do the math.
- The Archaeology of Olive Oil Production in Roman and Pre-Roman Italy. Pretty sure the Romans had a state and taxes. They also had domesticated olives.
- Wines of Fire and Earth: Exploring the Volcanic Terroirs of the Canary Islands – a Case Study. No Romans on the Canaries, but plenty of vines.
- Black Death Land Abandonment Drove European Diversity Losses. The Romans and their successors, with their cereals, olives and grapes, were surprisingly good for landscape floristic diversity. The Black Death, not so much.
- The decades-old fantasy of enhancing pigeonpea productivity. Well that’s a bit of a letdown after a 6 million year journey.
- Past, present and future of local crop evolution. That’s because we needed Indigenous people and local communities to show us the way.
Nibbles: Agricultural expansion maps, Brassica diversity, Not against the grain, South African seedbanks, Safer peanuts, Diné seedbank
- Agriculture is bad for natural ecosystems. But great for maps, you have to admit.
- Greens are good for you. And this is a great roundup of the latest scholarship on brassica evolution, domestication and diversity. You’ll find most of the paper quoted in past Brainfoods.
- Grains are great. Especially with greens.
- Thank goodness for household seed banking. Especially in conjunction with the formal kind.
- All so we can breed a better peanut. And cut down more natural ecosystem?
- No, there’s community genebanks for that too…
Nibbles: Online seeds, Yam breeding, Rice genebanks, Indian commmunity seed banks, Sikkim banana, Cassava disease, ICARDA genebank, Tajikistan women
- The perils of dematerialization play out in India.
- Is YamHub dematerialization?
- Rice genebanks in Bangladesh and at IRRI are pretty solid.
- There’s a pretty solid platform for India’s community seed banks.
- I hope Nagaland’s wild bananas end up in genebanks.
- Cassava’s diversity is in multiple genebanks, and that’s a good thing, CBSD and all.
- ICARDA’s genebank back in the Syrian news, though in a good way for once.
- Tajikistan’s women farmers are bringing back crops with not a worry about dematerialization. Or genebanks, it seems.
Nibbles: German genebank, Bambara groundnut, Community seedbanks, Atacama genebank, Georgian traditional crops
- Seed saving at IPK handed over.
- Why Bambara groundnut needs saving.
- Kenyan women get together to save seeds.
- Saving seeds in the Atacama Desert.
- Saving wheat and vines in Georgia.
Nibbles: Family farming, Banana diversity, Logotonu Waqainabete, ICARDA genebank women, SOTW3 in Africa
- “Our traditional crops are not just food. They are life. They are our ancestors’ legacy and our children’s inheritance.”
- “Banana diversity is not only a scientific or agricultural asset — it is the sector’s insurance for the future.”
- “Through my parents, I learned that agriculture doesn’t just feed people, it also makes the world more beautiful.”
- “Genebank work depends on accumulated knowledge. If that knowledge isn’t transferred, you don’t just lose experience, you introduce risk.”
- “Conserving and using Africa’s plant genetic resources is not a luxury. It is a necessity for resilient agrifood systems in a changing climate.”