Nibbles – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

Nibbles: Retiring Ellis, Teff patent, Rice in Bangladesh, Indian wild wheat, Livestock wild relatives, Bambara groundnut, Han diversity, Danone cultures, Drumming, IPBES, World Bee Day, Agroforestry

Dave Ellis retires, world celebrates. Wait, that came out wrong…
The Dutch teff patent saga.
Saving rice diversity in Bangladesh.
Conserving and using wild wheat in India.
Livestock have wild relatives too.
It’s the “minor” crops, stupid.
The most expensive pistachios in the world.
Human diversity and domestication in E Asia, summarized in a cool map.
Open yoghurt.
The connection between Nigerian music and watermelons. Yes, there is one.
Summarizing reaction to IPBES.
Happy World Bee Day.
Oh, and I almost forgot, follow the livestream of the World Congress on Agroforestry.

Nice synthesis of dog (and chicken) domestication.
Saving the Jala maize landrace in Mexico.
Saving lots of rice landraces in India by eating them.
Myanmar does not live by rice alone. And neither does India.
Saving a whole bunch of stuff in Colombia.
Saving a sorghum wild relative in Australia.
How coconuts can help museums decolonize.
Maybe agricultural development needs to decolonize too. Discuss.
Africa’s Fertile Crescent is the Niger River Basin. Nice, but we saw that coming first.
Citrus is big in Japan.
Olive oil is big in Liguria.
The visnaga cactus was big in the US Southwest once. As an ingredient in candy, of all things.
Breeding filberts in the US.
Tomato 2.0.
And a bunch of other crops American farmers and breeders are having to adapt to climate change.
And not just that, they have to deliver better nutrition too.
Eat what you want, sure. But think what that means for climate change.
Principles for GAIN engaging with the private sector (in all its diversity) on nutrition. Could be applied to engagement on climate change, I suppose, and crop diversity conservation for that matter. My question, though, is: runaway train, or Titanic?

Marker-assisted breeding in grapes: like skimming through a book looking for key words.
Vanilla genome: going from no-frills vehicle to luxury sportscar.
CGN on what to do to ensure continued access to that book — or car.
A topic which is all the rage right now in the ITPGRFA, on which this is a one-page primer.
14th century Māori grew taro as well as sweet potato.
Great infographics on the fascinating region of Dhofar in southern Oman, in which I collected germplasm many years ago. Great opportunity to reminisce.