Nibbles

Nibbles: Ukraine genebank, Inequality, Olive breeding, Colorado apples, Indian rice diversity, Edible trees, Australian Grains Genebank

Spanish-language article about the effort to save Ukraine’s genebank.
Report on “Reducing inequalities for food security and nutrition” from the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). They don’t say so explicitly, but genebanks can help with that.
They can certainly help with breeding new olive varieties, which are much needed.
Genebanks come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes an apple orchard is also a genebank.
Sometimes rice farmers are genebanks.
I wonder how many genebanks conserve trees with edible leaves. This book doesn’t say, alas.
The Australian Grains Genebank (AGG) gets a boost. No word on whether it will start conserving edible trees.

Short, slightly random piece on the CATIE genebank.
Equally short and equally random piece on genebanks in general, leading with CATIE, closing with Svalbard. I suppose one shouldn’t be looking at a gift horse in the mouth.
A Ugandan field genebank is suffering from thefts. Maybe we shouldn’t call them banks.
Jamaica wants a coconut genebank. Hope it has a strong fence.

Multiple simultaneous crop failures are going to get more common.
All the more reason to transform food system, right?
Which means funding genebanks properly, even on Malta.
And saving what can still be saved. Like fruit trees in the US, yes, why not?
But you have to know what to do with all that stuff in genebanks. Nigeria is showing a way to do that.
One thing you can do is breed beans which take less time to cook. Win-win.
While doing all that, let’s not forget peasants’ rights.

You want agroecology? Don’t neglect labour issues.
You can’t neglect hot dry winds if you want the breed wheat for Kansas these days.
IFPRI continues to ride the latest neglected crops bandwagon, this time in Latin America.
In Africa, beer may rescue fonio from neglect.
Rescuing plants from herbarium sheets.
Rescuing herbarium sheets in Ukraine.
Breeding a safe grasspea will definitely save it from neglect.
Meanwhile, in Rome, negotiations to enhance the Plant Treaty’s multilateral system of access and benefit sharing re-start. I bet a whole bunch of neglected crops are on the agenda.

Marketing the milpa.
Marketing a traditional Cretan olive variety.
Finding lost apples in New England. Now to market them.
Taking new passion fruit varieties to market in Australia.
Deconstructing Moche history, society and culture through compost and struggle meals. No sign of markets.
Reviewing the state of agroecology in Africa. Does “economic diversification” count as marketing?
The Global Tree Knowledge Platform must have stuff on marketing somewhere.
The books series ISSUES IN AGRICULTURAL BIODIVERSITY, now free to download, has lots on marketing.