- More than milk and honey.
- A very large cherry.
- A very large genebank.
- Let them eat sorghum, Zambian president says.
- That’s not an option for the Hopi.
Nibbles: Humble spud, Perry obsession, Eating to Extinction, Peasant studies
- The story of the potato in Poland.
- The story of one man’s obsession with the pear.
- Nice extract from Eating to Extinction by Dan Saladino. Get the whole book to get the full story!
- Free version of the classic Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions by Philip McMichael. The story? “Revaluing of food system diversity, and public and planetary health, reformulates the current agrarian question, rejecting food regime capital-centrism.”
Nibbles: Indigenous plant names, Navajo plant specimens, Vivien Sansour, Canarian papas, GMO chef
- The importance of Indigenous plant names.
- The Navajo Nation has a herbarium.
- A Palestinian seed saver rightfully celebrated.
- Ancient potatoes of the Canaries.
- Fancy GMOs for dinner? Wait, what?
Brainfood: Mapping double, Niche modelling, CGIAR impacts, Pathogen genebank, Data stewardship, Breeding tradeoffs, Organic vs conventional, Agronomic trials, Teff evaluation, Eggplant genetic resources, Quinoa phenotyping
- Conservation needs to break free from global priority mapping. Couldn’t agree more. And less.
- National climate and biodiversity strategies are hamstrung by a lack of maps. Wait, what?
- The evolutionary genomics of species’ responses to climate change. You need to combine niche modelling with genetic adaptation to get the best maps.
- Payoffs to a half century of CGIAR research. A benefit-to-cost ratio (BCR) of 10:1. Not counting the genebanks. And all the maps.
- A case for conserving plant pathogens. But will it be worth it?
- Poor data stewardship will hinder global genetic diversity surveillance. What’s the BCR for decent metadata?
- Mitigating tradeoffs in plant breeding. Cutting out the cross-talk changes tradeoff to payoff.
- Comparing Productivity of Organic and Conventional Farming Systems: A Quantitative Review. Conventional is more productive. But should yield be the only criterion?
- Priority micronutrient density in foods. Right. Micronutrients are also important.
- Reconciling yield gains in agronomic trials with returns under African smallholder conditions. And how was yield measured anyway?
- Data-driven, participatory characterization of traditional farmer varieties discloses teff (Eragrostis tef) adaptive and breeding potential under current and future climates. This might well be an example of applying the lessons of the above.
- Genetic Diversity and Utilization of Cultivated Eggplant Germplasm in Varietal Improvement. The wild relatives will save us.
- Quinoa Phenotyping Methodologies: An International Consensus. But will it work for the wild relatives? Just kidding, this is an important development for another crop (with the above) which doesn’t have something like the CGIAR and its 10:1 BCR behind it…
Nibbles: Luxury brands, Food companies, TV and diets, Saving seeds, IUCN Green Status, 0 Hunger Pledge, Zizania
- Luxury brands discover biodiversity: “There is no champagne without grapes, no ready-to-wear without silk and cotton, no perfume without flowers…”
- What about global food and agriculture companies though? Let’s find out, shall we?
- TV can help where companies won’t.
- Of course, you can set up your own company, as these Tunisian women did.
- Imagine a company helping to move a species to “green status.” Imagine.
- They could sign the Zero Hunger Pledge for the Private Sector while they’re at it.
- But meanwhile, on Ojibwe land…