- Small farms contribute a third of the food consumed in high-income nations. And those small farms are disproportionately diverse…
- The Global Spatial Co-Variation Between Crop Diversity and Landscape Heterogeneity. …and crop diversity on farms goes with landscape diversity.
- Beyond Crop Hotspots: Why Overlooked Marginal Agricultural Lands Deserve Urgent Attention. I’m willing to bet landscape diversity is often associated with marginality, but that’s not the end of the world.
- Food Biodiversity and its Association with Diet Quality and Health Outcomes-A Scoping Review. Why should we care about diverse farms? Because diversity in your food is associated with nutritional adequacy, a reduced risk of mortality, or a reduced risk of gastrointestinal cancers. Ok, I know, I missed a step there. There was nothing in the past few weeks in the literature specifically linking farm diversity and food diversity, but you know the link is there. At least sometimes.
- Long-term agricultural diversification increases financial profitability, biodiversity, and ecosystem services: a second-order meta-analysis. Diversity on farms is not just good for (ok, maybe) diets.
- Global evidence that plant diversity suppresses pests and promotes plant performance and crop production. Another way farm diversity is useful is via pest control. Well, actually, this could count as an ecosystem service, and so an example of the above.
- Ecological drivers of intercropping performance for enhanced global crop production. Ah, that explains how those farm ecosystem services actually works.
- Crop rotations synergize yield, nutrition, and revenue: a meta-analysis. Rotations are diversification too, and good for you too.
- Revitalizing orphan crops to combat food insecurity. But of course the diversification strategy de jour is opportunity crops.
- Value chain research and development: The quest for impact. And for that revolution to happen, we’ll need a better grip on value chains.
- Cultural innovation can increase and maintain biodiversity: A case study from medieval Europe. Yes, agricultural revolution can lead to increased biodiversity.
- Household vegetable agro-biodiversity in northern Vietnam requires diversity in seed sources. Any revolution is going to need good sources of good seeds though.
Nibbles: Restoration, Monitoring, CARDI, Margot Forde, Warwick, Slow Beans 2025, Lonicera
- Africa needs good forest seeds.
- And genetic monitoring of the resulting plantings, probably.
- The Caribbean also wants quality seed, and thinks a mobile seed bank is the way to get it.
- The only mobile things about New Zealand’s genebank are its collectors.
- A very mobile donation to the UK’s vegetable genebank.
- Nothing very mobile about Slow Beans 2025, but that’s the point.
- The long journey of honeysuckle.
Nibbles: Ukraine duplication, Mexican native maize, Andean agriculture double, Campanian crops double, Pacific cryobank, Moringa promotion
- A little more safety for Ukraine’s seeds, thanks to a new genebank.
- A little more safety for Mexico’s native maize, thanks to Pres. Sheinbaum.
- A little more safety for Andean agriculture, thanks to Ecuadorian Indigenous women and Inside Mater in Peru.
- A little more safety for Ischia’s zampognaro bean and Amalfi’s lemons, thanks to local people (and GIAHS).
- A little more safety for Pacific crops, thanks to cryopreservation. Breadfruit next?
- A little more safety for moringa? At least in Africa with all its “opportunity crops”?
Brainfood: Biodiversity intactness, Landuse change, Drought stress, Crop suitability, Yield variance, Phenotypic data
- Consistent global dataset on biodiversity intactness footprint of agricultural production from 2000 to 2020. Spatial dataset shows how global consumption drives ecological degradation.
- Rapid monitoring of global land change. Spatial dataset shows how in 2023 direct human action and fires caused land use conversion globally over an area the size of California.
- Remote monitoring of plant drought stress with the apparent heat capacity. Spatial dataset can provide early warning of drought. Early warning system for genetic erosion, anyone?
- CropSuite v1.0 – a comprehensive open-source crop suitability model considering climate variability for climate impact assessment. Spatial dataset shows where 48 crops will have the best yields.
- Climate change increases the interannual variance of summer crop yields globally through changes in temperature and water supply. Spatial dataset shows that climate change impacts not just yields but variation in yield from year to year for maize, soybean and sorghum.
- Reassessing data management in increasingly complex phenotypic datasets. Datasets need to be properly managed to be widely used.
Nibbles: Fiona Hay, Richard Ellis, FAO exhibition, Peasants, Wheat breeding, Svalbard, Søren Ejlersen, Ephraim Bull, Heirloom apples, Caffeine, Collards history
- Dr Fiona Hay, seed scientist, on why we need genebanks, including seed banks.
- Prof. Richard Ellis retires. A genebank legend, as Fiona would probably agree.
- FAO exhibition goes From Seeds to Foods. By way of genebanks, no doubt.
- And peasants, of course. No, it’s not a derogatory word, settle down.
- Can Green Revolution breeding approaches (and genebanks) help peasants deal with climate change?
- Even genebanks need a back-up plan though.
- New Mexico genebank helps out Danish chef.
- The history of the Concord grape and its foxiness. Chefs intrigued.
- The history of Aport and Amasya apples. No foxiness involved, as far as I know. Genebanks? Probably.
- The origin of caffeine. Now do foxiness.
- Where did collards come from anyway? No, not genebanks. Bloody historians, always re-writing history.