- The history of maize — according to Pioneer.
- The importance of maize — according to Dr Mujuni Sospeter Kabululu, Curator, National Plant Genetic Resources Centre—Tanzania.
- The future of vegetables — according to WorldVeg.
- The future of pigeonpea — according to ICRISAT.
- How should we value nature in our food systems? By true cost accounting — according to TABLE.
- A good way to value nature in our food systems is through recognizing Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems — according to FAO.
- How strong was ancient Egyptian beer? Not very — according to ethnoarcheobotanists. But it’s still worth trying to reproduce it — according to me. Seneb!
Brainfood: Balanced diets, Diverse diets, Diverse flavonoids, Micronutrients and GHGE, African traditional diets, Tef diversity, Intercropping, Sleeping crops, Cluster bean, Taste
- A framework for adequate nourishment: balancing nutrient density and food processing levels within the context of culturally and regionally appropriate diets. Some processing, but not too much. Some animal-source food, but not too much.
- Diversity of Plant-Based Food Consumption: A Systematic Scoping Review on Measurement Tools and Associated Health Outcomes. And make the non-animal-source food diverse.
- High diversity of dietary flavonoid intake is associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality and major chronic diseases. Make the flavonoids diverse too, while you’re at it.
- Greenhouse gas emissions in relation to micronutrient intake and implications of energy intake: a comparative analysis of different modeling approaches. It’s unclear whether diets that deliver more (and more diverse?) micronutrient are worse for greenhouse gas emissions.
- Africa’s contribution to global sustainable and healthy diets: a scoping review. African traditional diets are pretty healthy. I’m betting their greenhouse gas emissions are low and all.
- Population genomics uncovers loci for trait improvement in the indigenous African cereal tef (Eragrostis tef). Which is not to say that traditional African crops could not be improved, healthwise.
- Hidden potential of cluster bean: an unexploited legume crop for food and nutritional security. Or other underused traditional crops, for that matter.
- Impacts of biodiversity-positive intercropping systems on food quality, safety and the consumer acceptance: A case study of intercropped wheat. What, the food needs to be intercropped too? Another tick for African diets.
- The sleeping crops of eastern North America: a new synthesis. Traditional eastern North American crops, production systems and diets probably tick a bunch of boxes too. Awake, Cinderellas!
- But does it taste good? A plea to consider the importance of flavor in managing plant genetic resources. None of the above matters, I suspect, if the stuff doesn’t taste good. I’m looking at you, teff and cluster bean.
Brainfood: Complementarity, Temporality, Communality, Fonio trifecta, Atriplex domestication, Egyptian clover in India, Genebank information systems
- A significantly enhanced role for plant genetic resource centres in linking in situ and ex situ conservation to aid user germplasm access. On-farm conservation must result in use of the conserved diversity, and genebanks can help with that. Just another way of saying the two approaches are complementary?
- Looking back to look ahead: the temporal dimension of conservation seed bank collections. Those genebanks may need to do repeated sampling of the same population though.
- Landrace diversity and heritage of the indigenous millet crop fonio (Digitaria exilis): Socio-cultural and climatic drivers of change in the Fouta Djallon region of Guinea. Repeated sampling would defintely have helped.
- Community seedbanks in Europe: their role between ex situ and on-farm conservation. Repeated sampling is kind of what community seedbanks do, no?
- Impacts of climate change on fonio millet: seed germination and suitability modelling of an important indigenous West African crop. Community seedbanks may not be enough though.
- Phylogenetics, evolution and biogeography of four Digitaria food crop lineages across West Africa, India, and Europe. Maybe the wild relatives will help.
- Black Ash – a Forgotten Domestication Trait in Garden Orach (Atriplex hortensis L.). It’s amazing what people domesticated plants for in the past. And might in the future.
- Quality seed production scenario of Egyptian clover (Trifolium alexandrinum) in India: A 24-year retrospective analysis. But in the end, you have to get high quality certified seeds out, and that’s not always easy.
- The potential of seedbank digital information in plant conservation. Will definitely need a pretty good documentation system to keep all the above straight.
Brainfood: CC & crop diversity, Dietary Species Richness, CC & banana, European genebank representativeness, Effective Population Size, VarScout, Borlotti bean diversity, Oaxacan? Green Dent, Sorghum mucilage, Gut bacterial diversity
- Climate change threatens crop diversity at low latitudes. At low latitudes maybe about a third of the production of 30 major crops shifts outside their climatic niche under 2-3°C global warming, and potential food crop diversity declines on half of global cropland, but potential diversity increases elsewhere. So that’s all good then?
- Dietary species richness provides a comparable marker for better nutrition and health across contexts. Dietary species richness (DSR) can be used as a marker for the nutrition and health. If DSR is related to production diversity, I guess that could mean trouble at lower latitudes?
- Socio-economic factors constrain climate change adaptation in a tropical export crop. Actually the reduction in suitable area is 60% for banana. And there’s a decline in yield too. Unclear what that will do to DSR.
- Plant evolutionary history is largely underrepresented in European seed banks. Would be interesting to apply this specifically to crops. Or even just crop wild relatives.
- The Idiot’s Guide to Effective Population Size. Can this be usefully applied to crops? I’d like to see how banana comes out.
- Digital Revolution in Farmer Fields: VarScout Unveils Kenya’s Varietal Landscape – The Case of Potato. I’d like to see how banana comes out.
- Genetic Diversity and Distinctiveness of Common Beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Between Landraces and Formal Cultivars Supporting Ex Situ Conservation Policy: The Borlotti Case Study in Northern Italy. It’s difficult, but not impossible, to distinguish — and maintain — landraces of Borlotti beans apart from obsolete and modern cultivars. I wonder if VarScout would help.
- Oaxacan Green Dent maize is not from Oaxaca. Watch out for landrace names.
- Mucilage produced by aerial roots hosts diazotrophs that provide nitrogen in Sorghum bicolor. Not just maize. And another aspect of diversity to have to worry about.
- Cryptic diversity of cellulose-degrading gut bacteria in industrialized humans. And another… What’s the interaction with DSR though?
Brainfood: Andean chefs, Tricot, Enset ploidy, Minor livestock, NUS meals, Cocoyam breeding, Millets in India, Brazilian fruits, Indian fruits
- Grains of Wisdom: Insights into the Minds of Top Chefs—A Synthesis of Expert Interviews and Literature. A good chef can make even quinoa palatable.
- Citizen science informs demand-driven breeding of opportunity crops. I wonder if tricot can make quinoa palatable. Never mind, it’s good for a lot of other things.
- Recurrent evolution of cryptic triploids in cultivated enset increases yield. Unclear if triploid enset is any more palatable than the diploid. Interesting that traditional knowledge picks up ploidy.
- Is there unrecognized potential in neglected livestock species in Sub-Saharan Africa? A systematic review of four selected species. The benefits include sustainability, nutrition and income, but not higher palatability apparently.
- Enhancing Nutrition and Cost Efficiency in Kenyan School Meals Using Neglected and Underutilized Species and Linear Programming: A Case Study from an Informal Settlement. Better palatability was not included in the linear programming, alongside such staples (geddit?) as cost and nutritional value. But it could be, right?
- Cocoyam (Xanthosoma sagittifolium (L.) Schott) genetic resources and breeding: a review of 50 years of research efforts. Unclear if enhanced palatability is a breeding aim. But it should be.
- Strengthening the millet economy: lessons from a South Indian case study. Palatability is not an issue. Drudgery is.
- The traditional knowledge about the biodiversity of edible Brazilian fruits and their pollinators: an integrative review. Presumably includes data on palatability? And ploidy :)
- Wild edible fruit utilization patterns in Garhwal himalaya (Uttarakhand, India): a multi-decadal perspective. Reasons for decline in consumption include limited traditional knowledge transfer, time constraints, migration, generation gap, and hygiene concerns. But not, apparently, palatability.