- SeedLinked: an app to source cool vegetable seeds. And more.
- Want to become a variety champion for the Heritage Seed Library? Where’s the app though?
- A compendium of evidence on the efficacy of biofortification from HarvestPlus. Jeremy surely available for comment?
- Kew celebrates efficacy of enset conservation in Ethiopia.
- Not sure if the Ethiopia Biodiversity Institute is in on that celebration.
- Some of Ethiopia is Sahelian, no? Anyway, here’s a nice piece on the forgotten, but important plants from that neck of the woods.
- We should all celebrate pollen banking much more.
- Celebrity chef worried about the effect of climate change on food.
- Including food prices. I dunno, maybe pollen banking will help.
- Or maybe even a lunar repository.
- Speaking of food prices, I bet this Svalbard restaurant is not cheap. Maybe there’s a nice view of the Seed Vault though. Who needs the moon?
- The latest Devex newsletter has lots of stuff on food prices and prizes and (non-lunar) seed vaults.
- Do you use any of the above for research and development? The FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture would like to hear from you.
Nibbles: Forest seed collecting, Colombian maize, Türkiye & China genebanks, Community seedbank trifecta, Wheat breeding, Rice breeding, Bean INCREASE, WorldVeg regen, UK apples, Rangeland management
- How to collect forestry seeds.
- Whole bunch of new maize races collected in Colombia.
- The Türkiye national genebank in the news. Lots of collecting there. Though maybe not as much as in this genebank in China.
- But small communities need genebanks too. Here’s an example from Ghana. And another from India. And a final one from the Solomon Islands.
- Need to use the stuff in genebanks though. Here’s how they do it in the UK. And in Bangladesh. And in Europe with the INCREASE project, which has just won a prize for citizen science. And in Taiwan. Sort of citizen science too.
- Collecting apples in the UK. Funny, the canonical lost-British-apple story appears on the BBC in the autumn usually. Kinda citizen science.
- Or we could do in situ conservation, as in this South African example… Just kidding, we all know it’s not either/or. Right? Probably a good idea to collect seeds is what I’m saying. Could even do it through citizen science.
Brainfood: UK NUS, German labelling, Indian diversity, Ghana fonio, Kenya veggies, Rwanda biofortified beans, Cassava WTP, Urochloa resources, Perennial flax
- Diversifying the UK Agrifood System: A Role for Neglected and Underutilised Crops. It’s really hard to pick potential NUS winners. So why even try? Support them all!
- Can markets for nature conservation be successful? An integrated assessment of a product label for biodiversity practices in Germany. Labelling agricultural products can support biodiversity conservation, but probably not on its own. Can it support NUS, I wonder?
- On-farm crop diversity, conservation, importance and value: a case study of landraces from Western Ghats of Karnataka, India. Plenty of diversity in these study sites, including of NUS, but ex situ conservation still needed.
- Revealing Ghana’s unique fonio genetic diversity: leveraging farmers knowledge for sustainable conservation and breeding strategies. Supporting NUS is going to need the knowledge of farmers…
- African indigenous vegetables, gender, and the political economy of commercialization in Kenya. …especially women farmers. Up to a point.
- Cultivating prosperity in Rwanda: the impact of high-yield biofortified bean seeds on farmers’ yield and income. Ok, beans are not a NUS, but you get the point.
- Increased farmer willingness to pay for quality cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) planting materials: evidence from experimental auctions in Cambodia and Lao PDR. NUS or not, clean planting materials and new varieties attract a price premium.
- Brown-top millet: an overview of breeding, genetic, and genomic resources development for crop improvement. Urochloa ramosa is definitely a NUS. And labelling will probably not be enough.
- Survival analysis of freezing stress in the North American native perennial flax, Linum lewisii. If you want to help your NUS, make it perennial?
Nibbles: SPAM2020, Pullman genebank, Svalbard, Olive plague, Rice diversity, Vanilla threat, Gum rockrose, VACS demand, AI double, Food & climate change
- The latest version of the SPAM global crop area distribution model is out. You can play with it here.
- Some bullet points on the USDA’s National Plant Germplasm System outpost in Pullman.
- Yes, the above references Svalbard, as does this piece on Spanish tomatoes.
- Pity we can’t put olives in Svalbard, but there’s a another way to protect olive diversity.
- A breakdown of rice colour diversity. A lot of this stuff will be in Svalbard, with any luck.
- Vanilla will also need attention.
- But gum rockrose seems to be taken care of, at least in Bulgaria. It’s what you make Holy Chrism with.
- So there’s bound to be demand for it, at least in some quarters. Unlike for other opportunity/orphan/neglected crops, but GAIN is on it.
- And if all else fails there’s always AI, be it to fight pests and diseases or find cool plants out in the jungle.
- Why does all this matter? Because of the climate F-word.
Nibbles: Seed info, Potato 101, Coffee 101, Rice repatriation, Iraq genebank, Use or lose, Teff breeding, Micronutrients, Agrobiodiversity, Plant a Seed Kit, WorldVeg to Svalbard, Seed Health Units
- Eastern and Southern Africa Small-scale Farmers’ Forum (ESAFF) launches SEED GIST, a quarterly repository of seed literature.
- A fun romp through potato history.
- A fun romp through coffee history.
- Hong Kong gets some rice seeds back from the IRRI genebank.
- No doubt Iraq will get some seeds back from the ICARDA genebank soon.
- Genebanks are only the beginning though.
- Breeding teff in, wait for it, South Africa.
- The possible tradeoffs of an environmentally friendly diet.
- IIED on the value of agrobiodiversity. Includes an environmentally-friendly and/or nutritious diet.
- Slow Food’s Plant a Seed Kit is all about agrobiodiversity and healthy diets. What, though, no teff?
- WorldVeg knows all about seed kits, and safety duplication.
- Gotta make sure those seeds are healthy, though. Here’s how CGIAR does it.