- Agricultural trade and its impacts on cropland use and the global loss of species habitat. Rich countries have a large biodiversity footprint outside their borders because they import a lot of agricultural products from areas where biodiversity is disappearing fast.
- International food trade benefits biodiversity and food security in low-income countries. Ah, but low-income, high biodiversity countries import a lot too. I really don’t know what to think about trade now. Nicely parsed by Emma Bryce.
- Biodiversity and yield trade-offs for organic farming. Biodiversity gain and yield loss balance each other out. Oh, come on scientists, would it kill you to give a definite answer?
- Crop harvests for direct food use insufficient to meet the UN’s food security goal. We should definitely use more cropland for actual human food. But that would probably not be good for exports, no? Uff.
- The hidden safety net: wild and semi-wild plant consumption and dietary diversity among women farmers in Southwestern Burkina Faso. Yeah, but who needs crops and imports anyway.
- Six decades of warming and drought in the world’s top wheat-producing countries offset the benefits of rising CO2 to yield. In any case, crops are in trouble.
- Planning complementary conservation of crop wild relative diversity in southern Africa. But CWR will save crops if only we can conserve them.
- Genome Editing for Sustainable Agriculture in Africa. Especially if we use the latest toys.
- Impact of the European Union’s Seed Legislation and Intellectual Property Rights on Crop Diversity. And have all the right policies in place.
- Farm-level production diversity and child and adolescent nutrition in rural sub-Saharan Africa: a multicountry, longitudinal study. But actually, it’s livestock we really need.
Brainfood: Insect biodiversity, Pollinator conservation, Sustaining protected areas, Tea gardens, Sustainable meat hunting, Eating weeds in Crete, Organic ag in Sweden, New wine grape varieties, Genomic crop improvement, Anthocyanins in crops, Amaranthus core collection, Bere barley
- Agriculture and climate change are reshaping insect biodiversity worldwide. Does that mean there won’t be enough of them for us to eat? Well, and to pollinate stuff I guess.
- From science to society: implementing effective strategies to improve wild pollinator health. It’s the indirect drivers that will get them in the end.
- Sustainable protected areas: Synergies between biodiversity conservation and socioeconomic development. Empower communities and management, you fools!
- Tea–vegetable gardens in Longsheng Nationalities Autonomous County: temporal and spatial distribution, agrobiodiversity and social–ecological values. Communities and management were presumably fully empowered.
- WILDMEAT interventions database: A new database of interventions addressing unsustainable wild meat hunting, consumption and trade. Very empowering, I’m sure. Unclear whether edible insects are included though.
- Chorta (Wild Greens) in Central Crete: The Bio-Cultural Heritage of a Hidden and Resilient Ingredient of the Mediterranean Diet. Well, frankly, who needs insects when you have weeds?
- Relative yield of food and efficiency of land-use in organic agriculture – A regional study. If the best bits of Sweden went fully organic, 130% more land would be needed. Unclear whether eating either weeds or insects was factored into the calculations.
- Advancing designer crops for climate resilience through an integrated genomics approach. Forget eating weeds, protecting pollinators and empowering this or that, thrown everything at crop improvement.
- Developing Germplasm and Promoting Consumption of Anthocyanin-Rich Grains for Health Benefits. Especially crops with coloured grains.
- The World Vegetable Center Amaranthus germplasm collection: Core collection development and evaluation of agronomic and nutritional traits. Well, and vegetables, presumably.
- Consumer acceptance of fungus-resistant grape wines: Evidence from Italy, the UK, and the USA. Ah yes, but whether consumers like the idea of grape vines improved through interspecific hybridization depends on what exactly you tell them. So much for empowerment.
- The evolutionary relationship between bere barley and other types of cultivated barley. Unfortunately this paper did not come out in time for the inclusion of a subplot on the introduction of Viking barley to the Orkneys in the current blockbuster The Northman. But I hear there’s stuff in there about empowerment.
Nibbles: Oz genebanks, Turkish heirlooms, Indian heirlooms, Peruvian cryobank, Chinese cryobank, Seeds for farmers, Gamma gardens, Bees, DSI, Seville cathedral, Food & climate change
- Australian politicians promise genebank. World holds its breath.
- Meanwhile, in Turkey…
- … and India…
- …and Peru…
- …and China.
- Another way of getting seeds to farmers.
- What, even irradiated ones?
- But don’t forget the bees.
- Hopefully DIS won’t scupper all this sharing.
- Because although our foods are not set in stone…
- …we’ll need more than changes in habits to adapt agriculture to climate change.
Brainfood: Organic ag, Food systems, Seed systems, Breeding for value, Breeding for intercropping, Breeding for cider, Breeding with CWR, Breeding with imaging, Breeding with modelling, Ag & the state
- Impact of large-scale, government legislated and funded organic farming training on pesticide use in Andhra Pradesh, India: a cross-sectional study. Training was not enough.
- Australian local government policies on creating a healthy, sustainable, and equitable food system: analysis in New South Wales and Victoria. Local governments are not doing enough.
- Impact of seed system interventions on food and nutrition security in low- and middle-income countries: A scoping review. Seems like Indian organic farming and Australian local governments should have tried seed system interventions.
- Market Intelligence and Incentive-Based Trait Ranking for Plant Breeding: A Sweetpotato Pilot in Uganda. Breeders need to figure out what farmers value.
- Plant Breeding for Intercropping in Temperate Field Crop Systems: A Review. Breeders need to look at context.
- Meta-analysis of apple (Malus × domestica Borkh.) fruit and juice quality traits for potential use in hard cider production. Breeders need to watch out for plasticity.
- Progenitor species hold untapped diversity for potential climate-responsive traits for use in wheat breeding and crop improvement. Breeders need to sequence crop wild relatives.
- The Use of Near-Infrared Imaging (NIR) as a Fast Non-Destructive Screening Tool to Identify Drought-Tolerant Wheat Genotypes. Breeders need fancy phenotyping.
- Coupling genetic structure analysis and ecological-niche modeling in Kersting’s groundnut in West Africa. Breeders need ecological niche modelling.
- The Origin of the State: Land Productivity or Appropriability? The state didn’t need breeders.
Brainfood: Green Revolution narratives, Soybean diversity, Wild barley diversity, Maize and bean breeding, Rice breeding, Apple pedigrees, Trees and diets, ICRISAT genebank, IITA genebank, GHUs, CGIAR policy, Diverse farming, De novo domestication
- Epic narratives of the Green Revolution in Brazil, China, and India. Symbols, heroes, heritage-making and we-will-do-it-even-better-next-time in the service of self-preservation and self-assertion. But, as we shall see below, not everything needs to be an epic success to be interesting, and useful.
- Using landscape genomics to infer genomic regions involved in environmental adaptation of soybean genebank accessions. Analysis of USDA collection shows that many haplotypes associated with high-latitude cold tolerance in China are still absent from modern American and European cultivars.
- Phenotypic evolution of the wild progenitor of cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare L. subsp. spontaneum (K. Koch) Thell.) across bioclimatic regions in Jordan. Re-collecting after 23 years shows some loss of phenotypic diversity.
- Decades of Cultivar Development: A Reconciliation of Maize and Bean Breeding Projects and Their Impacts on Food, Nutrition Security, and Income of Smallholder Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Much done, much remains to be done.
- Genetic Trends Estimation in IRRIs Rice Drought Breeding Program and Identification of High Yielding Drought-Tolerant Lines. Progress, but not fast enough.
- A new method to reconstruct the direction of parent-offspring duo relationships using SNP array data and its demonstration on ancient and modern cultivars in the outcrossing species Malus × domestica. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell which variety is the parent and which the offspring.
- What are the links between tree-based farming and dietary quality for rural households? A review of emerging evidence in low- and middle-income countries. Meta-analysis shows that trees can help with diets, but it depends on a lot of things.
- Genebanks and market participation: evidence from groundnut farmers in Malawi. Improved peanut varieties derived from genebank accessions encourage market participation by farmers through expanding the area under cultivation, but not the amount sold.
- IITA’s genebank, cowpea diversity on farms, and farmers’ welfare in Nigeria. Improved varieties derived from genebank accessions don’t push out landrace diversity and are associated with higher yields and other benefits to farmers.
- The role of CGIAR Germplasm Health Units in averting endemic crop diseases: the example of rice blast in Bangladesh. The IRRI Germplasm Health Unit contributed about 2% to the benefits of the rice blast resistance breeding programme, but that’s a cost:benefit ratio of 112.
- Policy directions in public agricultural research: CGIAR’s public goods mandate and plant genetic resources. There has been too much focus on the “global” bit of “global public goods,” and opportunities have thus apparently been missed. The three papers above would like a word though.
- Landscape complexity and functional groups moderate the effect of diversified farming on biodiversity: A global meta-analysis. Diverse farming systems are better for both agricultural production and biodiversity.
- Breeding future crops to feed the world through de novo domestication. Ah yes, we will do it better this time.