Mainstream

March 17, 2021

Nibbles: Pastoralism, Chinese seeds, Livestock genetics comic

What pastoralists know.
What a Chinese organic farmer knows.
What kids should know.

March 11, 2021March 11, 2021

Nibbles: Vavilov, Indian rice, Mexican maize, British hops, ICARDA, Turkey feathers

Podcast on Vavilov.
Indian government mainstreams Vavilov.
Debate on maize in Mexico ends up mainstreaming Vavilov.
Vavilov would approve of Fuggle and Golding.
Pretty sure Mariana Yazbek and Vavilov would have got on.
Not sure if Vavilov thought much about livestock domestication, but I expect so, and he would probably have enjoyed this story about Pueblo turkeys too.

March 9, 2021March 9, 2021

Nibbles: Zoos, China genebank, Trinidad genebank, Patagonia & Breadfruit Institute, Dichotomising food, African food, Twitty on rice

Seed banks, but for animals.
New genebank, for seeds, in China.
Old genebank, for seeds, in Trinidad & Tobago.
Food company collaborates with oldish genebank, of trees.
Industrialist or organicist, we’re still going to need genebanks.
Podcasting on African food. Not a genebank in sight.
How an African food became an American food.

March 5, 2021March 5, 2021

Nibbles: Millets 2023, Pygmy hog, Iraqi seeds, Botanicals, Business, EU

Watch out for the millets renaissance.
This small wild pig is already having a renaissance.
Can you help with the renaissance of some Iraqi vegetable seeds?
Alpine botanicals will be having anything but a renaissance. Genebanks anyone?
No way to call the uptick in interest in biodiversity in the financial industry a renaissance. I’m not even sure it’s an uptick, actually. Absinthe, anyone?
Will the EU’s Farm to Fork plus biodiversity strategies lead to an environmental renaissance?

March 4, 2021March 4, 2021

Nibbles: Bean atlas, Community seedbanks double, Canadian stamps

New edition of the Atlas of Common Bean Production in Africa still doesn’t have localities of genebank accessions.
Community seed banks have genebank accessions in Kenya and India.
Canadian stamps have crabapple varieties that are probably genebank accessions somewhere.

1. What has agrobiodiversity ever done for us? Kent Nnadozie of the Plant Treaty lays it out.
2. Michael Frei of the HealthyDiets4Africa project doesn’t need it laid out.
3. Neither do the people who awarded a prize to Charlotte Allender of the UK Vegetable Genebank.
4. What has the US National Plant Germplasm System ever done for anyone? The Guardian, the NY Times and NPR News lay it out. I guess someone in D.C. needs it laid out, but will it make any difference?
5. Everyone: Potatoes in Florida! Breeders: No problem. NPGS: You called?
6. Here’s The Guardian again, but this time thinking it is making the case for not putting seeds in the fridge, whereas in fact it’s making the case for the complementarity of ex situ and on-farm conservation.
7. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s a couple of pieces on community seed banks in Guatemala.
8. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s the heart-warming story of Welsh organic farmer Gerald Miles.
9. Meanwhile, the World Vegetable Centre opens a new genebank.
10. And Türkiye hosts an international, no less, olive genebank.
11. And genebanks can be so beautiful, like works of art. Former Tate Modern director Vicente Todolí lays out his citrus samples. I wonder what he could do with olives.
12. Botanic gardens are beautiful and often act a little bit like crop genebanks. Here’s an example from Portugal I stumbled onto recently, I forget how.
13. You know what I’d like to see? An international pepper genebank, that’s what. No, not the kind that might be in those Guatemalan community seedbanks or the WorldVeg genebank. This sort of pepper. Piper pepper.
14. I bet the ancient Egyptians had pepper. Egyptian archaeologist Mennat-Allah El Dorry lays out what else they had.
15. Maybe you could lay out world history using pepper. You can definitely do so using cacao and chocolate.
16. No, not using ancient DNA, but actually…
Published on April 4, 2025