Nibbles

Nibbles: China grasslands, Edible lily, Ag data, China potatoes, CIP genebank, Vavilov book, Ghana seeds, Nutrition enterprises, Seed production films, Khoury pod, Relais & Châteaux

China rehabilitates its grasslands.
Not content with that, China breeds a new edible lily.
Not sure what food group lilies are in, but farmers are growing more fruits and vegetables, it seems.
Still not resting on its lilies, China breeds climate-smart potatoes.
No doubt CIP and its genebank is helping with that.
There’s a new book on Vavilov and his genebank. He knew a thing or two about potatoes.
Ghana is totally on board with the whole genebank thing. And the Dutch are helping.
Genebanks should hook up with small- and medium-sized enterprises for nutrition. What, not large ones?
Genebanks also need nice education films on seed production.
Friend-of-the-blog Colin Khoury interviewed on In Defence of Plants podcast.
Luxury hotels and restaurants hook up with UNESCO to protect biodiversity. Vavilov would have been so proud.

Collecting tree seeds properly and respectfully is not easy.
No word on how easy it is to collect tepary beans respectfully.
Helping the USDA with their germplasm evaluations, on the other hand, is a breeze. Any tepary beans?
Seed Savers Exchange makes conserving seeds look easy. Spoiler alert: it isn’t.
It seems to be very easy to open new national genebanks in China.
Farming is easier in Nepal with indigenous crops.
Giant yams don’t look very easy to grow, but that’s not stopping some dedicated Indian women.
It’s pretty easy — and fun — to visit the United Kingdom’s National Fruit Collection.
Someone mention apples? Loammi Baldwin knew a thing or two about them.
It’s going to get easier to identify plants. It says here.
If you’re looking for interventions or policies to shift diets towards being healthier and more sustainable, your job just got a little easier.
Likewise if you think the crises of biodiversity loss, water and food insecurity, health risks and climate change should be tackled together.
Yes, even if you’re a business trying to manage your biodiversity risk you have a right to have it easier. Start by being respectful when climbing trees?

A paean to diverse diets is just what we all need.
And another one, from the MIT Technology Review of all places.
Menawhile, there’s only one reference to dietary diversity in the World Bank’s investment framework for nutrition.
Maybe you have to quantify that diversity before you can save it? Now where have I heard that before?
Meanwhile, Europe reports on biodiversity-friendly farming practices. Does that include the biodiversity of the actual crops? Perhaps surprisingly, yes!
You want biodiversity-friendly farming practices? Talk to Indigenous people. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has launched an e-consultation on “Preserving, strengthening and promoting Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems and traditional practices for sustainable food systems.”
There’s diversity in asparagus too.
Genebanks can help with those biodiversity-friendly practices, diverse diets and rops and Indigenous practices.
Even big international genebanks.
Even the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
But some are in trouble.
Though others are coming back.

Big IUCN report says that biodiversity and agriculture are in conflict, they don’t really need to be, but it’s really complicated for them not to be. So that’s us all told.
If only annual crops were perennial, for example, eh?
If only we incorporated more sustainable agriculture in education, for example, eh? Apart from anything else we could still have beer. No word on the role of perennial barley though.
If only improved seeds were open source, for example, eh?
If only we could cryopreserve coral, for example, eh? Wait, what?

With remarkable regularity, China announces some impressive genebank thing. Like a catalog for 105 tropical crop genebanks. But where is it?
On the other hand, we probably don’t hear enough about African genebanks, so this piece is very welcome.
Or about genebanks in Papua New Guinea, for that matter.
Have we heard enough about “opportunity crops” yet? No, probably not.
We will never stop hearing about the “bananocalypse,” I suspect.
Or about the IRRI genebank from Mike Jackson. Not that I mind.
The latest on the African Runner Peanut, about which we have blogged before. Several times. Not that I mind.
I will never tire of hearing about genebanks getting loads of money.
I will also never tire of hearing about win-win outcomes for biodiversity and food production.
The Navajo know all about that. And the Wayuu people in Guajira, Colombia for that matter.
We will soon all be tired of hearing about all the various COPs, but for now let’s see what the Dutch genebank and, let’s see who else we have, ok, sure, why not, ESG investors — what do they have to say?