- IFAD says farmers might need to change crops. Farmers unavailable for comment as presumably they’re too busy changing crops.
- Case in point: China moves into cacao.
- The food system is at the centre of all our ills. But I’m not sure switching from maize to sorghum is going to cut it.
- And neither will watching those food miles, alas.
- Example of a farmer changing crops, watching food miles and diversifying the food system.
- I suppose we could also just eat more trees?
- We’ll need ethnobotanists for that.
- And there’s clearly plenty of pumpkins out there.
- Maybe garum would go well with some of those NTFPs, and pumpkins.
- Do they teach garum at Fermentation School?
- Whoa, I did not realize archaea in the vertebrate gut feed on bacterial fermentation products.
- And let’s not forget to put everything in genebanks before it’s too late so we have a chance to do all of the above.
Nibbles: Oil palm, Diverse forestry, Financing biodiversity
- Parasites of oil palm monocultures as avatars of hope and justice.
- 30 ways to leave your monoculture.
- French take on investing in natural capital. Hopefully not oil palm monocultures though.
Nibbles: Solutionism, Gigantism, Summitism, Exhibitionism
- Apps: how not to solve the problem of kids’ nutrition.
- Giant pumpkins: solving a problem that doesn’t really exist.
- UNFSS: a waste of time or a first, necessary step in solving the problem of our age?
- Museums: if in doubt about a problem, build one.
Brainfood: Coconut cloning, Apricot diversity, European ag double, Diet seasonality, Farm size, Ethiopian seeds, Biocultural diversity, Aquatic food, Grasslands, Pollinator mixtures
- Development of the first axillary in vitro shoot multiplication protocol for coconut palms. Cloning the tree of life, really fast.
- Frequent germplasm exchanges drive the high genetic diversity of Chinese-cultivated common apricot germplasm. Looking forward to the same being said about coconut.
- Crop diversity effects on temporal agricultural production stability across European regions. The effects are good.
- Are agricultural sustainability and resilience complementary notions? Evidence from the North European agriculture. They are indeed, but what about stability though?
- Seasonal variability of women’s dietary diversity and food provisioning: a cohort study in rural Burkina Faso. Do Europe now.
- The “Sweet Spot” in the Middle: Why Do Mid-Scale Farms Adopt Diversification Practices at Higher Rates? Spoiler alert: it’s got less to do with farm size than with access to resources and markets. At least for Californian lettuce farmers.
- Politics of seeds in Ethiopia’s agricultural transformation: pathways to seed system development. The Ethiopian seed system needs diversification just as much as Californian lettuce farmers.
- Biocultural Diversity for Food System Transformation Under Global Environmental Change. What we all need is biocultural diversity.
- Harnessing the diversity of small-scale actors is key to the future of aquatic food systems. Yes, all of us, whether in mountains or by the sea.
- Combatting global grassland degradation. It may be stretching a point, but biocultural diversity may also be a useful lens through which to look at grassland restoration and sustainable management. But then I would say that.
- Supporting wild pollinators in agricultural landscapes through targeted legume mixtures. Yeah, let’s not forget the pollinators while we’re at it.
Nibbles: Mustard, Sugar, Cassowary, Citrus, Beans
- Cologne has a mustard museum and I want to visit it.
- Lecture on the role of sugar in supporting slavery and capitalism. Where is the sugar museum?Ah here it is.
- The cassowary may have been domesticated in New Guinea ten thousand years ago (with sugarcane?). Deserves a museum.
- Speaking of domestication, here is how that of citrus happened. There’s actually a number of different citrus museums out there.
- Nice PhD opportunity Sweden studying beans in Rwanda. There are museums in both places, I’m pretty sure.