Networking

September 20, 2026September 20, 2026

Celebrating the breadfruit in Hawaii

The 2026 ʻUlu Hoʻolauleʻa and Global Breadfruit Summit is taking place in South Kona, Hawaiʻi, from 19-24 September 2026.

The week-long celebration will bring together breadfruit farmers, farmer organisations, scientists, educators, chefs, cultural practitioners, entrepreneurs, policymakers and food-systems leaders from across the Pacific, the Caribbean and other regions. Together, participants will share knowledge, celebrate the cultural importance of breadfruit—known in Hawaiʻi as ʻulu—and explore its potential to support more resilient, healthy and sustainable food systems.

Sounds like great fun. If any readers are going, please tell us about it.

August 27, 2026August 28, 2026

Nibbles: Kurdish genebank, Ghana genebank, PABRA, Ubu, Beyond genebanks

Kurdistan inaugurates a new genebank in Sulaymaniyah, which Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani calls one of Kurdistan and Iraq’s most important national projects.
Ghana complements its national collection at Bunso. The new facility further north will improve drying, processing and conservation, while giving northern farmers and breeders closer access to crop diversity.
Three decades of African bean research partnerships and networking have helped turn a staple crop into a vehicle for improved nutrition, livelihoods and climate resilience.
In the Philippines, eight promising purple-yam accessions combine yield, sensory quality and market appeal, with Villasis 2 producing up to 60 tonnes per hectare in trials. Does it need a network next?
However, executive director of Seed Savers Exchange Mike Bollinger’s call in Food Tank’s to carry seed diversity forward extends stewardship beyond formal institutions: Indigenous communities, farmers, gardeners and seed libraries all have a role in keeping crop diversity alive and used.

July 20, 2026July 20, 2026

Brainfood: Collaboration edition

Dietary diversity, food security, and development projects in low- and middle-income contexts: Findings from 24 countries. Development projects are most effective at improving dietary diversity and food security when they bring together agriculture, nutrition and local communities.
Enhancing farmers’ access to neglected crop seeds for healthy diets in a changing climate: six recommendations for policy action. Improving farmers’ access to opportunity crop seeds requires coordinated action across seed systems, with researchers, policymakers, seed producers and farming communities all playing complementary roles.
The effects of seed policies, laws and regulations on farmers’ ability to access and use diverse, locally adapted farmers’ varieties and landraces. Seed policies shape collaboration between farmers, communities and formal seed systems, and regulations can either enable or constrain the exchange of locally adapted varieties that keeps agricultural diversity alive.
Studying vanishing dietary diversity before it is lost: the World Diet Initiative. The World Diet Initiative brings together nutrition science, ecology and cultural knowledge to understand disappearing food traditions, showing that protecting dietary diversity requires collaboration across disciplines and communities.
The Spanish Network of Genetic Conservation Units: a cooperative tool for the conservation and sustainable use of forest genetic resources under a changing environment. The Spanish Network of Genetic Conservation Units show how sharing expertise and responsibilities can strengthen forest conservation.
Strengthening national genebanks through genomics and regional collaboration: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean. A regional community of practice is helping national genebanks overcome technical and institutional barriers through shared genomic approaches, turning isolated collections into connected systems for conserving and using crop diversity.

February 23, 2026March 4, 2026

Brainfood: Genebanks edition

Seed collection and processing practices affect subsequent seed storage longevity in durum wheat and wild relatives. Immature seeds can still usefully be harvested for long-term storage of properly handled.
Two-step drying of soya bean seed germplasm often improves subsequent storage longevity. “Proper handling” includes drying at higher temperatures.
Seed-stored transcript integrity as a molecular indicator of viability in conserved common bean germplasm. mRNA degradation predicts loss of seed viability.
Developing a cryopreservation protocol for the conservation of coconut palm (Cocos nucifera L.) using a novel type of explant, meristematic clumps. Who needs seeds anyway?
Pollen cryobanking at the USDA-ARS National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation. Well, who needs meristematic clumps?
Mapping pea seed composition through strategic selection of accessions from the Nordic gene bank. Image analysis can be used to maximise diversity in nutritional composition in pea seeds, thus facilitating use of genebank collections. Can’t do that with pollen, I suspect.
A small-scale assessment of the availability of EURISCO accessions. Facilitating use needs all the help it can get.
Strengthening national genebanks through genomics and regional collaboration: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean. I guess genomics capacity could help with use.
Enhancing farmers’ access and use of conserved germplasm for improved food security and climate resilience: The case of sorghum at Kenya’s national genebank. Genomics unavailable for comment. Farmers, on the other hand….
Linking the ICRISAT Genebank to Poverty Reduction and Welfare in Malawi. Facilitating use by farmers is important.
Farmers as breeders and seed producers: Insights from 30 years of scaling up seed clubs in Vietnam. It’s super cool when farmers organize. Including for genebanks.
Elephant ear yam Xanthosoma robustum Schott (Araceae), a neglected crop native to Central America. Needs more attention from genebanks. And farmers and their clubs for that matter.
Plant genebank of Sudan: Towards recovery from the wreckage of war to a new era of further capacity development based on lessons learnt from similar situations. We must de-risk genebanks. Wouldn’t want to lose all those elephant ear yam collections we’ll be making.

February 13, 2026February 13, 2026

Nibbles: Family farming, Banana diversity, Logotonu Waqainabete, ICARDA genebank women, SOTW3 in Africa

“Our traditional crops are not just food. They are life. They are our ancestors’ legacy and our children’s inheritance.”
“Banana diversity is not only a scientific or agricultural asset — it is the sector’s insurance for the future.”
“Through my parents, I learned that agriculture doesn’t just feed people, it also makes the world more beautiful.”
“Genebank work depends on accumulated knowledge. If that knowledge isn’t transferred, you don’t just lose experience, you introduce risk.”
“Conserving and using Africa’s plant genetic resources is not a luxury. It is a necessity for resilient agrifood systems in a changing climate.”