I want to put up another quick post on the theme of innovative marketing of so-called “opportunity crops” in Kenyan supermarkets. Yesterday it was nicely packaged frozen amaranth leaves that struck me. Today it’s pre-cooked single portions of traditional dishes. No need to refrigerate. Just heat. And eat.
Nibbles: Tigray grapes, Latin American opportunity crops, Hawaii & Cayman coconuts, North Macedonian collecting, South Korea seed vault, Eswatini seed hub, Expensive healthy diets
- A North Macedonian professor’s 15-year rescue mission for landraces and crops surviving only in remote villages. Why bother? Stay tuned…
- Ancient grapevines in Tigray represent a unique genetic lineage with potential value for breeding varieties adapted to dryland conditions.
- Hawai’i Public Radio checks in on Maui’s coconut genebank. Useful to breed varieties adapted to really wet conditions, presumably.
- The Cayman Islands are also hoarding coconuts, along with lots of tasty fruits.
- A USD 400,000 boost from Taiwan for the Eswatini national genebank. Indigenous vegetables get much-needed love.
- A regional survey of 25 orphan crops across 13 Latin American countries finds quinoa and amaranth well-catalogued, but characterization budgets are the real bottleneck. Collecting and conserving in genebanks is great, but not enough.
- South Korea puts 330,000 seed accessions under “double lock”, hedging against both climate change and war. Conserving in one place is not enough.
- FAO warns that nearly a third of the world can’t afford the USD 4.28 a day that a healthy diet costs — nearly three billion people, and rising. That’s why we need al the above, I guess.
Nibbles: Apple-banana paradox, Genebanks, Indian wheat, Indian wild rice, Kenya community seed banks, Wild coffee, Macadamia history, Taro research, Cacti
- 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.