Nibbles: Vavilov, Argentine genebank, Millennium Seed Bank, Indian millets, Community seedbank, Creative finance, Healthy diets, African agriculture

  1. The Living Library of Resilience is a great name for what Nikolai Vavilov put together, and this longish piece from Maria Popova at The Marginalian is a great tribute to a great man.
  2. Vavilov’s example is being followed in Argentina, it seems, with the establishment of another genebank, in Corrientes.
  3. The Millennium Seed Bank reaches an important milestone. Vavilov would be proud.
  4. Can’t help thinking Vavilov would also wholeheartedly approve of grassroots Indian efforts to bring back millets, as usefully summarized The Locavore. Could have said a bit more about genebanks, though.
  5. Even genebanks like that of farmers such as Manas Ranjan Sahu. You don’t have to run an institute like Vavilov to build a genebank.
  6. The Global Alliance for the Future of Food and Transformational Investing in Food Systems Initiative (TIFS) have a report out on Mobilizing Money and Movements: Creative Finance for Food Systems Transformation. No genebanks in there either, alas, but there could so easily have been.
  7. FAO says billions of people in the world cannot afford a healthy diet, and it has the data to prove it. Does that mean genebanks are not doing their job (eg on nutrient dense orphan crops)? Or doing it too well (eg on the major calorie-rich staples)?
  8. African worthies say that we need to ramp up investment in the adaptation of agriculture on the continent to climate change. I hope that will include investment in Living Libraries of Resilience that conserve all manner of interesting local crops and varieties. And creative finance for them of course.

Brainfood: Genomics for conservation and use edition

Giving orphan crops an even break

Prabhu Pingali sets out the nutrition case for crop-neutral agricultural policy in an interview at Asterisk.

There’s a lot more talk about nutrition-sensitive agriculture and a lot more pronouncements about why this is important. However, most governments see this as an add-on, not a substitution. Rather than removing the existing supports or reducing the existing supports for staples, governments have just added supports for other crops. That creates some marginal improvement for some of the other crops, but your fundamentals don’t change. The crop-neutrality argument says: Treat all these crops on a level playing field and let market signals determine the supply responses.

Easier said than done, but there’s more in his chapter on Are the Lessons from the Green Revolution Relevant for Agricultural Growth and Food Security in the Twenty-First Century? in last year’s book Agricultural Development in Asia and Africa.

Brainfood: Food biodiversity, Diversification, New crops, GMO maize, African livestock, Greek innovation clusters, Amazonian native cacao

Nibbles: Genebanks in Japan, India, SADC, China, Sustainable nutrition security

  1. Another recent article in the mainstream media about the Japanese genebank. Not entirely sure why, but let’s not look a gift horse etc etc. Couple nice examples of re-introduction of lost diversity to farmers.
  2. And here’s the mainstream media in India (and the PM, no less) singing the praises of a farmer custodian of millet diversity.
  3. The mainstream media in Zimbabwe doesn’t want to be left behind and jumps on the genebank bandwagon too with a piece about the SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre.
  4. Yes, silkworms need a genebank too, and China is all over it.
  5. The Union of Concerned Scientists wants a new definition of food security and genebanks could probably help with that.