Organic agriculture

August 23, 2026August 23, 2026

Putting names and faces to organic seed diversity

…to foster the growth of the organic sector and transition towards more sustainable local food systems by delivering high quality organic seed of diverse cultivars adjusted to organic farming for a wide range of crops.

It is funded by Horizon Europe (Innovation Action), the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation and UK Research and Innovation, and gathers 37 partners from 16 countries.

The project is producing some interesting resources, but the ones I like best are actually a little difficult to find on their website. So difficult, in fact, that I have to resort to linking to them via a search result on Organic Farm Knowledge.

They are plant genetic cards, each providing information on a specific cultivar, “supporting its identification, conservation, cultivation and use by farmers, seed practitioners, breeders, researchers and other stakeholders of the seed system.”

Here’s a little piece of one such card from Greece.

There’s also something called the EU Organic Seed Database “to create more transparency for the EU member states and for plant reproductive material suppliers regarding available offers of organic plant reproductive materials and to increase the supply of organic plant reproductive material in the EU member states and Switzerland.”

To be honest, I haven’t really played around with it enough to form a definitive judgement, but it does seem a little complicated to navigate at first blush. If anyone has a go, and has an opinion, please let me know in the comments. However, the plant genetic cards do have links to possible sources of seeds.

August 22, 2026August 22, 2026

Nibbles: Amaranth webinar, FARA on fonio, Maslin, Gaza genebank, Nepal seeds, Golden Triangle tea

New webinar series from the American Society of Plant Biologists will explore how underutilized (or is it opportunity) crops like amaranth can contribute to nutrition, food security and rural livelihoods.
FARA highlights the tiny West African grain fonio as another crop with potential to improve nutrition, strengthen food systems and create new opportunities for farmers and value chains.
Taiwanese tea has travelled an unlikely route into northern Thailand. It too was an opportunity crop at one time.
Ethiopian farmers may have been practising regenerative agriculture for millennia, mixing wheat, barley and other grains in the same field. The Rockefeller Foundation is on it.
Efforts to restore the Al Qarara Seed Bank in Gaza are offering a small but significant form of agricultural recovery.
In Nepal, indigenous seeds are losing ground to hybrids, but seed advocates are fighting back.

August 10, 2026August 10, 2026

Brainfood: Avocado history, Brazil commuity seedbanks, Citizen science, Agroecology double, Indigenous knowledge, Turkish seeds, Swiss biodiversity

Ethnobotanical and genetic assessments of Central American avocado landraces reveal novel sources of biodiversity and ancient migration patterns. DNA from landraces, and interviews with farmers, show that people transported and cultivated avocados across the Americas long before European contact, with landraces from lowland Nicaragua and Honduras in particular showing evidence of ancient migration from South America.
The Circle of Seeds: An Ethnography of Seed Guardianship and the Making of Agroecological Futures in Paraná, Brazil. Community seed banks depend on relationships of care, reciprocity and collective labour, especially among women farmers, and not just on knowing how to store seeds properly. Though that helps, clearly.
iNaturalist as a Tool to Improve Agroecological Biodiversity Knowledge: An Ecuadorian Case Study. A citizen science platform can strengthen agroecological biodiversity knowledge, but more efforts are needed to engage farmers.
Are agroecological practices pro-poor? Evidence from smallholder farms in Zimbabwe. Farmers using agroecological practices were generally wealthier and their farms were more diverse in crop and livestock species, but the association between the use of improved practices and diet outcomes was inconsistent.
Regenerative agriculture for dietary diversity and food security in Zambia. Agroecological practices were positively correlated with improved dietary quality and food security, including (though not exclusively) through farm production diversity. No word on the wealth of the farmers involved.
Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems and practices for climate survival. Indigenous knowledge systems, including of farmers, offer tested approaches to climate adaptation and resilience that warrant a central place in responses to environmental change.
Guardians of Agricultural Biodiversity: Farmer Perceptions and Sustainability of Local Seed Varieties in Turkish Highlands. Farmers continue to maintain local seed varieties, driven as much by social, cultural and market considerations as by agronomic performance. But they need support.
Religion, spirituality and faith of Swiss farmers in relation to biodiversity-linked farming behaviour. Farmers’ religious and spiritual values can shape biodiversity-friendly management decisions, showing personal belief systems are important in conservation. Even in Switzerland.

June 30, 2026June 29, 2026

Nibbles: Kenyan crops, Omani mangoes, Wheat mixtures, Wagyu origins

Kenyan farmers are rediscovering indigenous crops.
Oman discovers it has lots of mango diversity, and moves to conserve it.
Swedish student discovering varietal mixtures.
Discover how a locally adapted cattle population in Japan became a globally recognized premium brand by maintaining distinctive genetic and breeding characteristics. Lessons there for all of the above perhaps?

April 19, 2026April 20, 2026

We need diverse farms, and genebanks can help

A LinkedIn post by CGIAR stalwart Dr Carlo Fadda convinced me I should give a bit more exposure to a recent paper than the brief Brainfood entry I wrote about it a few weeks ago. The paper is Long-term agricultural diversification increases financial profitability, biodiversity, and ecosystem services: a second-order meta-analysis. Its authors are Estelle Raveloaritiana and Thomas Cherico Wanger, and it was published in Nature Communications this past January.

In that Brainfood, I tried to bring together in a logical thread various studies on different aspects of farm diversity and its benefits. In particular, its effects on diet diversity, and hence health outcomes.

But better diets and human health are not the only pluses of diverse farms, and the paper in question in fact suggests that intercropping, organic farming, and other diversification strategies also increase incomes, biodiversity, pollination, soil quality, and carbon sequestration significantly over 20 years. With, importantly, no downward hit on crop yields. So going diverse — organic, if you will — has many advantages that are not overall associated with a yield tradeoff. And that’s from a meta-analysis of 184 meta-analyses and 120 years of data, so it’s a pretty robust result.

As Dr Fadda points out in his excellent summary of the paper, good evidence that diverse — including agrobiodiverse — farms are good for farmers, consumers and the planet is clearly there. The challenge is to find the institutional will to act on it.

I’d like to add that genebanks around the world are ready, willing and able to do just that. It’s literally their job, or at least a big part of it. I hope they are given the chance — and the resources — to do it.