Jeremy’s latest newsletter has agrobiodiversity-adjacent snippets on the re-making of an ancient bread in Turkey and on the “oenification of olive oil.” Plus a thing on oysters which is maybe not so adjacent but is also fun and sports a title that is worth the price of admission on its own. Read it.
Brainfood: Balanced diets, Diverse diets, Diverse flavonoids, Micronutrients and GHGE, African traditional diets, Tef diversity, Intercropping, Sleeping crops, Cluster bean, Taste
- A framework for adequate nourishment: balancing nutrient density and food processing levels within the context of culturally and regionally appropriate diets. Some processing, but not too much. Some animal-source food, but not too much.
- Diversity of Plant-Based Food Consumption: A Systematic Scoping Review on Measurement Tools and Associated Health Outcomes. And make the non-animal-source food diverse.
- High diversity of dietary flavonoid intake is associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality and major chronic diseases. Make the flavonoids diverse too, while you’re at it.
- Greenhouse gas emissions in relation to micronutrient intake and implications of energy intake: a comparative analysis of different modeling approaches. It’s unclear whether diets that deliver more (and more diverse?) micronutrient are worse for greenhouse gas emissions.
- Africa’s contribution to global sustainable and healthy diets: a scoping review. African traditional diets are pretty healthy. I’m betting their greenhouse gas emissions are low and all.
- Population genomics uncovers loci for trait improvement in the indigenous African cereal tef (Eragrostis tef). Which is not to say that traditional African crops could not be improved, healthwise.
- Hidden potential of cluster bean: an unexploited legume crop for food and nutritional security. Or other underused traditional crops, for that matter.
- Impacts of biodiversity-positive intercropping systems on food quality, safety and the consumer acceptance: A case study of intercropped wheat. What, the food needs to be intercropped too? Another tick for African diets.
- The sleeping crops of eastern North America: a new synthesis. Traditional eastern North American crops, production systems and diets probably tick a bunch of boxes too. Awake, Cinderellas!
- But does it taste good? A plea to consider the importance of flavor in managing plant genetic resources. None of the above matters, I suspect, if the stuff doesn’t taste good. I’m looking at you, teff and cluster bean.
Nibbles: Indian vault, Sundarban rice, Community seed banks, Fiji cassava, Georgia documentary, Kenya seed network, Nigeria mobilizes, Coffee prizes, Slow Food guardians, Peasant seed sovereignty, World Economic Forum seed pean, Seed sector shindig, Genesys acceleration
- Times of India says “India needs a new doomsday seed vault.” Why not just use the one already there in Svalbard?
- Meanwhile, women in the Sundarban are doing it for themselves.
- Maybe it’s community doomsday seed vaults that India needs?
- Fiji’s cassava is facing a doomsday of its own.
- Georgia — the country — is working on a documentary on crop diversity which will no doubt include their seed deposit in Svalbard.
- Kenya has a pretty good community genebanks video of its own.
- Nigeria is all over crop diversity. Not just once, but twice.
- Coffee prices going up? Can you imagine what will happen if we don’t conserve enough of its diversity?
- Want more examples of the coolness of crop diversity and its guardians? Slow Food has your back.
- La Via Campesina needs to encouragement either, where “peasant seeds” and their guardians are concerned.
- Even the World Economic Forum wants in on the act.
- And yet the seed sector seems…reluctant?
- Good job Genesys is getting faster, eh?
Coffee with everything
It might be because we happen to be doing something on the coffee diversity conservation strategy at work, but I have been noticing a lot of joe-related material online lately. There’s the bit on Sprudge (apparently, “the world’s most popular coffee publication”) about how coffee diversity needs a Svalbard. Seconded. And, from the same source, also comes a spotlight on Madagascar’s amazing coffee diversity.
Moving to West Africa’s diversity, there’s a Financial Times piece on Coffea stenophylla. And something that seems to be only on LinkedIn (for now) from Dr Steffen Schwarz of Coffee Consulate about how microbe diversity can do wonders with the flavour profile and caffeine content of C. liberica.
Finally, an official submission has gone in for Yemeni coffee to be included in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List. I wonder if all this bodes well for our thing.
Brainfood: CC & crop diversity, Dietary Species Richness, CC & banana, European genebank representativeness, Effective Population Size, VarScout, Borlotti bean diversity, Oaxacan? Green Dent, Sorghum mucilage, Gut bacterial diversity
- Climate change threatens crop diversity at low latitudes. At low latitudes maybe about a third of the production of 30 major crops shifts outside their climatic niche under 2-3°C global warming, and potential food crop diversity declines on half of global cropland, but potential diversity increases elsewhere. So that’s all good then?
- Dietary species richness provides a comparable marker for better nutrition and health across contexts. Dietary species richness (DSR) can be used as a marker for the nutrition and health. If DSR is related to production diversity, I guess that could mean trouble at lower latitudes?
- Socio-economic factors constrain climate change adaptation in a tropical export crop. Actually the reduction in suitable area is 60% for banana. And there’s a decline in yield too. Unclear what that will do to DSR.
- Plant evolutionary history is largely underrepresented in European seed banks. Would be interesting to apply this specifically to crops. Or even just crop wild relatives.
- The Idiot’s Guide to Effective Population Size. Can this be usefully applied to crops? I’d like to see how banana comes out.
- Digital Revolution in Farmer Fields: VarScout Unveils Kenya’s Varietal Landscape – The Case of Potato. I’d like to see how banana comes out.
- Genetic Diversity and Distinctiveness of Common Beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Between Landraces and Formal Cultivars Supporting Ex Situ Conservation Policy: The Borlotti Case Study in Northern Italy. It’s difficult, but not impossible, to distinguish — and maintain — landraces of Borlotti beans apart from obsolete and modern cultivars. I wonder if VarScout would help.
- Oaxacan Green Dent maize is not from Oaxaca. Watch out for landrace names.
- Mucilage produced by aerial roots hosts diazotrophs that provide nitrogen in Sorghum bicolor. Not just maize. And another aspect of diversity to have to worry about.
- Cryptic diversity of cellulose-degrading gut bacteria in industrialized humans. And another… What’s the interaction with DSR though?