Neglected species

November 2, 2021November 2, 2021

I say millets, you say mijo, mijo

Dr Don Osborn is a “specialist in rural development with expertise in natural resource management, agriculture, African languages, and localization of information technology.” Very active on Twitter, he had an interesting thread over there a few days ago on the International Year of Millets.

Translation issues ahead of #InternationalYearofMillets?

1. French version of the @UN General Assembly resolution uses singular rather than plural:
FR: Année internationale du mil instead of Année internationale des mils

For access to all translations: https://t.co/Eco66Pwuju

— Don Osborn (@donosborn) October 30, 2021

It seems the singular version of the word “millets” is used in the official documentation in some of the official UN languages. It may well be that “mijo” in Spanish, for example, is a generic term covering all the various species involved that doesn’t easily take a plural, but I do hope this doesn’t detract from the focus on diversity.

November 1, 2021October 29, 2021

Brainfood: Archaeological edition

Do Pharaohs’ cattle still graze the Nile Valley? Genetic characterization of the Egyptian Baladi cattle breed. Maybe.
Lessons on textile history and fibre durability from a 4,000-year-old Egyptian flax yarn. Pharaohs’ flax still being woven though.
Wild cereal grain consumption among Early Holocene foragers of the Balkans predates the arrival of agriculture. Which made it easier to adopt cultigens when farmers arrived.
The origins and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes. Horses from the lower Volga-Don spread all over Eurasia starting around 2000 BC along with equestrian material culture.
The Japanese wolf is most closely related to modern dogs and its ancestral genome has been widely inherited by dogs throughout East Eurasia. Kinda too bad it’s extinct, but maybe it can be reconstructed?
Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene sites in the montane forests of New Guinea yield early record of cassowary hunting and egg harvesting. Amazing. From looking at eggshells.
Hallstatt miners consumed blue cheese and beer during the Iron Age and retained a non-Westernized gut microbiome until the Baroque period. Amazing. From looking at, well, there’s no easy way of saying it, paleofeces.

October 28, 2021October 28, 2021

Nibbles: Crop change, Chinese chocolate, Food system, Eating local, Heritage wheat, NTFPs, Distinguished ethnobotanist, Pumpkins, Garum recipe, Fermentation, Archaea, NBPGR interview

IFAD says farmers might need to change crops. Farmers unavailable for comment as presumably they’re too busy changing crops.
Case in point: China moves into cacao.
The food system is at the centre of all our ills. But I’m not sure switching from maize to sorghum is going to cut it.
And neither will watching those food miles, alas.
Example of a farmer changing crops, watching food miles and diversifying the food system.
I suppose we could also just eat more trees?
We’ll need ethnobotanists for that.
And there’s clearly plenty of pumpkins out there.
Maybe garum would go well with some of those NTFPs, and pumpkins.
Do they teach garum at Fermentation School?
Whoa, I did not realize archaea in the vertebrate gut feed on bacterial fermentation products.
And let’s not forget to put everything in genebanks before it’s too late so we have a chance to do all of the above.

October 25, 2021October 25, 2021

Brainfood: RICA, AEGIS, CWR, Agrosavia, DSI, CRISPR, Tradition, SNS, Stability, Birds, Sparing, Genetic erosion

RICA: A rice crop calendar for Asia based on MODIS multi year data. RiceAtlas validated. Still trying to figure out how to mash it up with genebank accession locality data though. Any GIS geniuses out there to help me?
AEGIS, the Virtual European Genebank: Why It Is Such a Good Idea, Why It Is Not Working and How It Could Be Improved. Certify genebanks, that’s how.
Reap the crop wild relatives for breeding future crops. Needs good data and certified genebanks. Plus gene editing.
Opportunities and Challenges to Improve a Public Research Program in Plant Breeding and Enhance Underutilized Plant Genetic Resources in the Tropics. Needs better social networking. Plus better data and certified genebanks, presumably.
From seed to sequence: Dematerialization and the battle to (re)define genetic resources. Ah yes, data.
Current Advancements and Limitations of Gene Editing in Orphan Crops. Ah yes, gene editing.
Revitalizing Traditional Agricultural Practices: Conscious Efforts to Create a More Satisfying Culture. Meanwhile, in Sweden…
Sacred natural sites and biodiversity conservation: a systematic review. Of course sacred sites are good for biodiversity. But it’s always good to have the data.
Global relationships between crop diversity and nutritional stability. Sacred sites are not enough, alas.
Preserving local biodiversity through crop diversification. Crop diversity is even good for birds…
Concentrating vs. spreading our footprint: how to meet humanity’s needs at least cost to nature. …but, overall intensification of agriculture coupled with sparing land for conservation (maybe even in sacred sites) is the best approach for wildlife. And humanity, for that matter. So, back to needing better data from certified genebanks, so we can get that intensification done, right?
Quantifying the scale of genetic diversity extinction in the Anthropocene. Right!

October 18, 2021October 18, 2021

Brainfood: Coconut cloning, Apricot diversity, European ag double, Diet seasonality, Farm size, Ethiopian seeds, Biocultural diversity, Aquatic food, Grasslands, Pollinator mixtures

Development of the first axillary in vitro shoot multiplication protocol for coconut palms. Cloning the tree of life, really fast.
Frequent germplasm exchanges drive the high genetic diversity of Chinese-cultivated common apricot germplasm. Looking forward to the same being said about coconut.
Crop diversity effects on temporal agricultural production stability across European regions. The effects are good.
Are agricultural sustainability and resilience complementary notions? Evidence from the North European agriculture. They are indeed, but what about stability though?
Seasonal variability of women’s dietary diversity and food provisioning: a cohort study in rural Burkina Faso. Do Europe now.
The “Sweet Spot” in the Middle: Why Do Mid-Scale Farms Adopt Diversification Practices at Higher Rates? Spoiler alert: it’s got less to do with farm size than with access to resources and markets. At least for Californian lettuce farmers.
Politics of seeds in Ethiopia’s agricultural transformation: pathways to seed system development. The Ethiopian seed system needs diversification just as much as Californian lettuce farmers.
Biocultural Diversity for Food System Transformation Under Global Environmental Change. What we all need is biocultural diversity.
Harnessing the diversity of small-scale actors is key to the future of aquatic food systems. Yes, all of us, whether in mountains or by the sea.
Combatting global grassland degradation. It may be stretching a point, but biocultural diversity may also be a useful lens through which to look at grassland restoration and sustainable management. But then I would say that.
Supporting wild pollinators in agricultural landscapes through targeted legume mixtures. Yeah, let’s not forget the pollinators while we’re at it.