- Quinoa is bad. Well, good for some. No, good for everyone. No, really. Damn, this story is complicated!
- The story of pasta is pretty convoluted too.
- Collecting in Madagascar can be tricky.
- Lots of ways to combat hunger, no easy way to figure out which is best.
- On the other hand, it’s very easy to see how livestock genetics will feed the world. No, wait…
- FAO has a nifty website on “Technologies and practices for small agricultural producers” but even the “advanced interface” (sic) lacks an RSS feed. I ask you, how difficult is it to bung in an RSS feed? Anyway, there is some stuff on participatory breeding and diversification, though if you use the search term “landraces”, it helpfully suggests you may have meant “landslides.”
- I don’t suppose FAO is in any case interested in the Landrace Pillar of the Wheat Pre-Breeding Lola. Nope, didn’t think so.
- The European Seed Association doesn’t like the latest EU report on IP rights and genetic resources. They think the ITPGRFA not sufficiently recognized. Not as complicated as the quinoa controversy, but I storified it anyway. And then had to export it to a really ugly PDF in 2018 when that all came to an end.
- Still at the EU, Olivier De Schutter thinks they need to “development-proof” the CAP. Too difficult to think through the connection to the above, but I’m sure it exists.
- The 3rd International Conference on Conservation Agriculture in Southeast Asia has its proceedings online. Not just conservation agriculture, though. If you look hard enough there’s some conservation of agriculture. If you see what I mean. You get both in Miguel Altieri’s vision, of course.
- Development is a hard row to hoe. Especially if you’re into fish.
- Nothing hard, at least on the eyes, about the AMNH’s Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture exhibition.
Brainfood: Introductions, Diversified farming systems, Breadfruit, Rice, Aquaculture threats, Arthropods in rice, Diverse landscapes, Diverse pollinators, Species re-introduction, Ecosystem function, Grapes, Prunus africana
- Increases in crop pests caused by Wasmannia auropunctata in Solomon Islands subsistence gardens. Law of Unintended Consequences takes its toll. Or does it? Discussion at Pestnet suggests the Little Fire Ant may not have been introduced as a biological control agent as suggested by the paper.
- A Social-Ecological Analysis of Diversified Farming Systems: Benefits, Costs, Obstacles, and Enabling Policy Frameworks. Special issue of Ecology and Society on DFS. That would be Diversified Farming Systems. Bottom line is that you need to understand both their ecology and their politics to make sense of them, and make them work for you.
- Morphological diversity in breadfruit (Artocarpus, Moraceae): insights into domestication, conservation, and cultivar identification. 221 accessions provide exactly those insights.
- The original features of rice (Oryza sativa L.) genetic diversity and the importance of within-variety diversity in the highlands of Madagascar build a strong case for in situ conservation. Farms are more diverse than villages, which are more diverse than regions, so it may not take that much to conserve a lot of diversity in situ.
- More rapid and severe disease outbreaks for aquaculture at the tropics: implications for food security. Driven by environmental factors, and will get worse with climate change. Strangely, breeding for resistance, and genetic diversity in general, not mentioned.
- Cultivation of Domesticated Rice Alters Arthropod Biodiversity and Community Composition. Wild rice fields have different, less diverse arthropod communities.
- Quantifying habitat-specific contributions to insect diversity in agricultural mosaic landscapes. Some of the different bits of diverse landscapes in Switzerland have unique insects, which is apparently not the case in other places.
- Synergistic effects of non-Apis bees and honey bees for pollination services. And you do need lots of different insects, at least for pollination.
- Earth observation: overlooked potential to support species reintroduction programmes. Translocation and introductions are fraught, but if you still want to do them…
- An improved model to predict the effects of changing biodiversity levels on ecosystem function. Basically, the contribution of species 1 with relative abundance A and species 2 with relative abundance B to ecosystem function is AxB to the power of θ. Can it be extended to ecosystem services, I wonder?
- Pinot blanc and Pinot gris arose as independent somatic mutations of Pinot noir. So that’s where they came from. Insights into “[o]enological aptitude”.
- Divergent pattern of nuclear genetic diversity across the range of the Afromontane Prunus africana mirrors variable climate of African highlands. Sheds light on the history of Afromontane regions.
Is a new Cornucopia in the works?
Stephen Facciola’s Cornucopia is the bible of everyone interested in the oddities of the edible landscape. With it’s densely packed pages, numerous lists, and astonishing detail, it is everything you need wrapped in soft covers. It is also quite old. Now Facciola has posted an advert for a “Photographer, ethnobotanist, foodie”
Applicant will be photographing plants, plant parts, food products, food ingredients, etc., at ethnic and gourmetfood markets, farmers’ markets, germplasm repositories, market gardens, orchards, farms, botanical gardens, and seed banks in the U.S. and overseas. Must be willing to make long term commitment.
I can’t wait to see the results.
Nibbles: Maya nut, ARTCs, Pedal power, Cacao, Conservation, Dietary diversity, Ecosystem services, Climate change, Open access, Training, Drought resistance is futile, Organic farmers speak
- Maya nut blogs.
- And then there are the ARTCs. What do you mean, you don’t need another acronym?
- Pedal powered grain cleaning – with a link to a video of the thing in action. Could it be adapted for poorer places?
- A new research project on cacao in the Dominican Republic, and how it could support more biodiversity.
- Because we all know that crops compete with conservation, right?
- Cash, food or vouchers? In one study, vouchers result in greater dietary diversity.
- Speaking of which, maybe you can use varietal diversification to manage climate risk in East Africa.
- Or perhaps you can leave it all to ecosystem services.
- Speaking of which, someone actually asked Kenyan farmers how they perceive and respond to climate change.
- Speaking of which, the University of Nairobi has embraced open access.
- Speaking of which, in March there’ll be International Training Course Plant Conservation Biology: Science and Practice, which you can find here, with a little effort.
- The executive summary of a Union of Concerned Scientists report on drought-resistant crops.
- At a loose end? Listen to an hour of economics podcast on organic farming from that link.
Nibbles: Genome assembly, Congo livelihoods, Tilman, Peak farmland, Lima bean project, Cotton award, Translocation, Sudanese seed, Pachyrhizus, Conference, Agro-ecology, SEAVEG, Indigenous foodways,
- The latest genomic whiz-bangery.
- CIFOR’s Congo slideshow makes The Guardian. About as far from genomic whiz-bangery as you can get.
- Speaking of which… Very long talk by David Tilman. Almost certainly worth watching in its entirety. Eventually. It all depends on trade-offs. See what I did there?
- Agriculture stops expanding. Is it all that genomic whiz-bangery?
- U. of Delaware gets big Lima bean grant. Yes, Delaware. They got whiz-bangery in Delaware too.
- Meanwhile, Texan cotton breeder gets award. For a certain amount of whiz-bangery.
- Translocation and restoration: cool, but a last resort, whiz-bangery says.
- Support for the seed sector in S. Sudan. Any landraces? No whiz-bangery in sight.
- And likewise for the yam bean in Africa.
- Wonder whether that’ll be on the agenda at the First Food Security Futures Conference in April. Probably not.
- Nor, probably, will anyone be thinking too hard about agro-ecology; but you could be, with this handy-dandy introduction to holistic management.
- SEAVEG; no, not nori etc, but veg in SE Asia.
- Different animals need different kinds of fodder, ILRI shows how.
- Wishing success to the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative launched at the University of Arkansas today.