Nutrition

September 20, 2017

Go HarvestPlus!

Great to see HarvestPlus, part of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health, make it to the semi-finals of the MacArthur Foundation $100 Million Grant Competition.

With a $100 million grant, we would considerably scale up the delivery of biofortified nutritious crops in Africa, transforming the food system and breaking the cycle of nutrition insecurity to leave a lasting legacy for the continent’s future. The grant would allow us to set the stage for reaching 1 billion people globally with these crops by 2030.

There’s an interview with HarvestPlus founder “Howdy” Bouis on their website, explaining the history of the initiatiive. Biofortification is a great illustration of the importance on crop diversity.

September 19, 2017September 19, 2017

Nibbles: Millets galore, Human diversity & ag, Super farmers, Extinction is forever, Indian nutrition maps, Future Food competition, Banana viruses, Cassava in Brazil & Africa, Sugar book, Fairchild & Irma, Vegetable ROI, Embrapa beans, Certified coffee, Legal pot, Native American foods

Today’s new genome is pearl millet. The most climate-smart of crops? Now, to process it more easily.
Finger millet is not too bad either.
Agriculture was good for human diversity, at least in Papua New Guinea. Elsewhere, maybe not so much.
Julio Hancco Mamani grows 400 potato varieties up in the Andes (but how did it all start?). And Rahibai Soma Popere “15 varieties of rice, nine varieties of pigeon pea and sixty varieties of vegetables, besides many oil seeds” in Maharashtra.
“West Bengal government encourages cultivation of extinct rice varieties.” Wait, what?
Presumably not extinct like silphium.
India’s first nutrition atlas will maybe tells us where more Rahibai Soma Poperes are most needed.
Future Food includes seeds.
Cleaning up bananas.
Would love to have been on the “Brazilian Cassava Learning Journey.” Tanzania next?
The bitter side of sugar.
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden damaged by Irma.
Research on vegetables really pays off, vegetable researchers say.
Brazilian bean catalog launched.
Certifying coffee seeds.
Pot next?
Closely followed by Navajo tea.

September 18, 2017September 18, 2017

Brainfood: Baobab nutrition, New wild cucumber, Strawberry diversity, Sahelian threats, MTAs, CC & yields

Nutritional variation in baobab (Adansonia digitata L.) fruit pulp and seeds based on Africa geographical regions. Malawi has the most nutritious types.
A valid name for the Xishuangbanna gourd, a cucumber with carotene-rich fruits. Cucumis sativus L. var. xishuangbannanensis Qi & Yuan ex S.S.Renner, var. nov., if you must know.
Population genetic analysis of a global collection of Fragaria vesca using microsatellite markers. The Icelandic are different from the other European populatons.
Spatially explicit multi-threat assessment of food tree species in Burkina Faso: A fine-scale approach. All species threatened everywhere, but especially by climate change.
Use and Misuse of Material Transfer Agreements: Lessons in Proportionality from Research, Repositories, and Litigation. Horses for courses.
Temperature increase reduces global yields of major crops in four independent estimates. “Without CO2 fertilization, effective adaptation, and genetic improvement, each degree-Celsius increase in global mean temperature would, on average, reduce global yields of wheat by 6.0%, rice by 3.2%, maize by 7.4%, and soybean by 3.1%.”

September 8, 2017September 8, 2017

Nibbles: Community seed bank, Weird chocolate, Rice breeding, “Super” plants, Quinoa, Bush tucker

Mr Chetri’s genebank.
Ruby chocolate. You heard me.
The next Green Revolution won’t be like the first one. Phew.
Ideas that will change the world include “super plants” like enset. Right.
But not, surprisingly, quinoa.
Or bush tucker.

August 11, 2017October 25, 2019

Nibbles: Weird genebank, Wheat history, NJ blueberries, Xoloitzcuintle, Cemetery prairie, Tenure, Sunflower at USDA, Potato breeding book, Cullinary diversity, Genomics & breeding, Migration report

There’s a genebank for algae and protozoans.
How Turkey Red Wheat from Ukraine built Kansas.
Taming the wild blueberry.
History of the ugliest dog breed in the world.
The prairie lives on among the dead.
Speaking of which: land tenure and conservation.
Conserving and breeding sunflowers in the US.
Making potato breeding great again.
M.S. Swaminathan recommends millets.
Computing our way to food security.
Food insecurity and migration.