- China announces a slew of seed-related measures.
- A slew of seeds kept apples diverse in the US South, but not so much any more.
- Fortunately there’s a slew of apples, among many other things, in the USDA genebank system.
- Dates too, probably, but this article is actually about the (complementary?) collection at Arizona State University.
- A slew of intellectual protections has been good for seed companies. But consumers?
- IFG no doubts benefits mightily from intellectual property protection of its grape varieties. The diversity of which you can peruse on this nice website.
- Speaking of nice websites, this one helps farmers pick-a-mix of crops. Intercropping is diversity too.
- How the coffee industry is trying to cope with a slew of sustainability rules. Yeah, sometimes IP protection is not enough.
- But who owns heritage varieties?
- Including heritage varieties of Belgian malting barley and other cereals.
- Speaking of malting, they use sorghum in Tanzania.
- It’s unclear what heritage varieties went into making horse-bread, but I’d like to taste the stuff.
- But who needs bread (or beer?) anyway? There’s a slew of root and tuber crops in Africa and elsewhere just waiting to solve hunger…
- …as Guyana knows well.
- Wanna keep track of (most of) the above? FAO has you (sorta) covered via a slew of indicators.
Brainfood: Nutrition sensitive ag, nLCA, Organic expansion, Cheese value, Ethiopia anemia, Women empowerment, Homegardens, Ultra-processed food industry, Cassava processing
- Comparing delivery channels to promote nutrition-sensitive agriculture: A cluster-randomized controlled trial in Bangladesh. When it comes to delivering nutrition info jointly to husbands and wives, female nutrition workers and male extension workers are about equally good. But mothers-in-law don’t help in either case.
- Levelling foods for priority micronutrient value can provide more meaningful environmental footprint comparisons. From a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the environmental impact of different foods to a nutritional Life Cycle Assessment (nLCA). Maybe mothers-in-law should calculate it.
- Policy-induced expansion of organic farmland: implications for food prices and welfare. Raising the organic cropland share in rich countries from 3-15% increases food prices in poor countries by about 2% on average for 4 major grains and oilseeds. No word on what the LCA and nLCA looks like.
- Cheese consumption and multiple health outcomes: an umbrella review and updated meta-analysis of prospective studies. Cheese is moderately good for you. I wonder which micronutrients are involved.
- Ownership of small livestock species, but not aggregate livestock, is associated with an increased risk of anemia among children in Ethiopia: A propensity score matching analysis. Poultry was associated with lower anemia risk, sheep and goats with higher risk. No word on whether cheese was involved.
- Women’s empowerment, production choices, and crop diversity in Burkina Faso, India, Malawi, and Tanzania: a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data. Women on more diverse farms had more power. No word on how many of them were mothers-in-law.
- The Role of Home Gardens in Promoting Biodiversity and Food Security. Mothers-in-law and homegardens would be one hell of a study.
- The ultra-processed food industry in Africa. It should be treated like the tobacco or alcohol industry. Maybe put mothers-in-law in charge of regulating it?
- Exploring genetic variability, heritability, and trait correlations in gari and eba quality from diverse cassava varieties in Nigeria. Just a reminder that there may be genetic diversity in all the above nutritional type stuff. Which the ultra-processed food industry is probably ignoring, but mothers-in-law are not.
Nibbles: Ukraine genebank, Inequality, Olive breeding, Colorado apples, Indian rice diversity, Edible trees, Australian Grains Genebank
- Spanish-language article about the effort to save Ukraine’s genebank.
- Report on “Reducing inequalities for food security and nutrition” from the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). They don’t say so explicitly, but genebanks can help with that.
- They can certainly help with breeding new olive varieties, which are much needed.
- Genebanks come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes an apple orchard is also a genebank.
- Sometimes rice farmers are genebanks.
- I wonder how many genebanks conserve trees with edible leaves. This book doesn’t say, alas.
- The Australian Grains Genebank (AGG) gets a boost. No word on whether it will start conserving edible trees.
Brainfood: Private finance, Public finance, Land sparing, Land sharing, Trade-offs, Ecological intensification, Metaverse, Crop failure
- Finance for food systems transformation. “Financial institutions with significant portfolio exposure to the agrifood sector” need to step up.
- Heavy reliance on private finance alone will not deliver conservation goals. We can’t trust financial institutions with significant portfolio exposure to the agrifood sector.
- Current conservation policies risk accelerating biodiversity loss. Spare the land for biodiversity, don’t share it. Financial institutions with significant portfolio exposure to the agrifood sector would probably agree. But that’s ok.
- Scientific evidence showing the impacts of nature restoration actions on food productivity. Land sharing isn’t all that bad actually.
- Biodiversity and pollination benefits trade off against profit in an intensive farming system. Land sharing needs financial incentives. Here we go again.
- Ecological intensification of agriculture through biodiversity management: introduction. Yeah but that’s only one example. Check out these 5 reviews and then let’s talk about financial incentives.
- The Meta-universe Platform Roblox for the Conservation of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS): The Case of the Floating Garden Agricultural Practices. Can they charge for it though?
- Risks of synchronized low yields are underestimated in climate and crop model projections. Meanwhile, the world burns…
Nibbles: Agroecology, Wheat breeding, NUS in LA, Fonio beer, Herbarium seeds, Ukraine herbarium, Grasspea breeding, Plant Treaty
- You want agroecology? Don’t neglect labour issues.
- You can’t neglect hot dry winds if you want the breed wheat for Kansas these days.
- IFPRI continues to ride the latest neglected crops bandwagon, this time in Latin America.
- In Africa, beer may rescue fonio from neglect.
- Rescuing plants from herbarium sheets.
- Rescuing herbarium sheets in Ukraine.
- Breeding a safe grasspea will definitely save it from neglect.
- Meanwhile, in Rome, negotiations to enhance the Plant Treaty’s multilateral system of access and benefit sharing re-start. I bet a whole bunch of neglected crops are on the agenda.