Category: Organic agriculture

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Brainfood: CGIAR impacts, Alternative ag, Landscape simplicity, Biocultural diversity, PPP, Bioversity & food security, Landrace legislation, Coffee ABS, Useful plants

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Nibbles: Cheese microbes, OSSI, Mung bean, Sustainable ag, Agroecology, Collard greens, African orphan crops, Olive diversity, Mezcal threats, German perry, Spanish tomatoes, N fixation

  1. A sustainable blue cheese industry needs more microbial diversity.
  2. The Open Source Seed Initiative gets written up in The Guardian. Looks like we need something similar for cheese microbes.
  3. The Guardian then follows up with mung bean breeding and fart jokes.
  4. But then goes all serious with talk of trillions of dollars in benefits from sustainable food systems. Diversity not mentioned, alas, though, so one wonders about the point of the previous pieces.
  5. Fortunately Indigeneous Colombian farmers have the right idea about sustainability.
  6. Collard greens breeders do too, for that matter.
  7. More African native crops hype for Dr Wood to object to. Seriously though, some crops do need more research, if only so they can be grown somewhere else.
  8. There’s plenty of research — and art for that matter — on the olive, but the international genebanks could do with more recognition.
  9. The mezcal agave, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have much diversity in genebanks, and it is threatened in the wild.
  10. Perry culture in Germany is also threatened. Pretty sure there are genebanks though.
  11. This piece about tomato diversity in Spain is worth reading for many reasons (heroic seed saving yada yada), but especially for the deadpan take on the Guardia Civil at the end.
  12. Maybe we could breed some of those tomatoes to fix their own nitrogen. And get the Guardia Civil to pay for it.
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Nibbles: CAAS genebank, VACS, Opportunity crops, Ross-Ibarra, Canary sweetpotatoes, Land Institute crowdsourcing, BBC seed podcast

  1. The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences genebank fills some gaps.
  2. I wonder if any of those new accessions are “opportunity crops.”
  3. Because they are sorely needed, for example in Africa.
  4. Which is not to say working on staples like maize isn’t cool. Just ask Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra.
  5. Working on sweet potato can also be, well, sweet. Case in point: gorgeous book on the varieties of the Canaries.
  6. There’s an opportunity to help the Land Institute with its research on perennial crops.
  7. And yes, seeds are indeed alive. Just ask CAAS.
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Nibbles: Seed system, Food system, Coffee infographic, African agroecology, ENRICH, Land Institute citizen science

  1. Do you want to describe and analyze seed systems? Let the Norwegian University of Life Sciences show you how.
  2. Do you think there should be a, well, systemic approach to the food system? So does the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Hope they include seed systems. And genebanks.
  3. Want a rather beautiful way to remember the complicated history of coffee? Let Chris Kornman sell you one. A time when botanic gardens acted as genebanks.
  4. Looking for an African take on African agricultural development? Million Belay has you covered. Wish he had mentioned African genebanks though.
  5. Would you like to celebrate 20 years of HarvestPlus? IFPRI to the rescue.
  6. Want to grow perennial crops for the Land Institute? Well now you can.
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Nibbles: Crop diversity, Coloured rice, Saudi genebank, WorldVeg genebank, Mango genebank, USDA apple genebank, Green Revolution, Organic agriculture

  1. IFAD says we need diverse crops.
  2. KAUST says we need coloured rice.
  3. I hope it will go into Saudi Arabia’s new genebank.
  4. Genebank scientists says we need more collaboration.
  5. Goa thinks they need a new mango genebank.
  6. The USA already has an apple genebank.
  7. But will all these genebanks lead to a new Green Revolution…
  8. …or organic farming?
  9. Maybe both.