Mainstream

March 2, 2021March 2, 2021

Nibbles: Transformation, Livestock pod, Coffee pod, GHUs, Viz double, Yaupon, Wild foods, GRIN, Korean vegetables, Oz Indigenous bakers, Warwick vegetables

IAASTD ten years on. Not many people hurt.
Interesting new ILRI podcast hits the airwaves.
And here’s another new podcast: A History of Coffee. So far so pretty good.
Meanwhile, CIP rounds up recent webinars on germplasm health.
Fun visualizations on the seasonality of food.
Speaking of visualizations, RAWGraphs is a pretty neat tool.
North America used to have a native caffeinated beverage, the attractively named Ilex vomitoria.
Maybe South Africa’s local wild foods have a better chance.
Using USDA’s genebank database, GRIN.
Not sure if this Korean-American farmer does (access USDA’s genebank database, do keep up), but probably.
I wonder if any of these Australian wild foods will find their way into a genebank, just in case.
Genebanks like the UK veggie one at Warwick.

February 24, 2021

Nibbles: Improving heirlooms, CRISPR, Greening, International Space Station

Breeding better beans.
Including soybeans.
And potatoes.
And grapes. In space.

February 23, 2021February 23, 2021

Nibbles: Costich, GHUs, Locusts, Brachiaria, Fruits & veggies, Ag data, Agroecology

Dr Costich’s Odyssey.
CGIAR Germplasm Health Units: Between the Scylla of spreading pests and diseases and the Charybdis of getting stuff out to genebank users too slowly.
Turning insects into food
Feeding cattle under the Congolese sun.
Plenty of intoxicating fruits out there besides lotus.
Weaving a web of data for food security.
Europe heeds the siren song of agroecology.

February 20, 2021February 22, 2021

Nibbles: Bangladeshi gardens, Rambo root, Invasive hybrids, Pomologia, CWR, Genebanks, Deforestation, Agroecology, Post-2020, Intergenerational justice

Floating gardens are a solution.
Cassava is a solution.
Eco-fusion is a solution.
Art is a solution.
Crop wild relatives are a solution.
Genebanks are a solution.
Understanding the effect of agricultural commodities on forests is a solution.
My agroecology is a solution, but not your agroecology.
2021 will be a solution.
Long-term thinking is the solution.

February 17, 2021February 17, 2021

Nibbles: Goodness edition

What makes a good seed?
What makes good seed conservation?
No, really, what makes good seed conservation?
What makes better seeds?
What makes good seed planting?
What makes a good tree for seed planting?

Fresh Nibbles

What has agrobiodiversity ever done for us? Kent Nnadozie of the Plant Treaty lays it out.
Michael Frei of the HealthyDiets4Africa project doesn’t need it laid out.
Neither do the people who awarded a prize to Charlotte Allender of the UK Vegetable Genebank.
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?
Everyone: Potatoes in Florida! Breeders: No problem. NPGS: You called?
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.
Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s a couple of pieces on community seed banks in Guatemala.
Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s the heart-warming story of Welsh organic farmer Gerald Miles.
Meanwhile, the World Vegetable Centre opens a new genebank.
And Türkiye hosts an international, no less, olive genebank.
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.
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.
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.
I bet the ancient Egyptians had pepper. Egyptian archaeologist Mennat-Allah El Dorry lays out what else they had.
Maybe you could lay out world history using pepper. You can definitely do so using cacao and chocolate.
No, not using ancient DNA, but actually…

Published on April 4, 2025