- Watch out for the millets renaissance.
- This small wild pig is already having a renaissance.
- Can you help with the renaissance of some Iraqi vegetable seeds?
- Alpine botanicals will be having anything but a renaissance. Genebanks anyone?
- No way to call the uptick in interest in biodiversity in the financial industry a renaissance. I’m not even sure it’s an uptick, actually. Absinthe, anyone?
- Will the EU’s Farm to Fork plus biodiversity strategies lead to an environmental renaissance?
Nibbles: Transformation, Livestock pod, Coffee pod, GHUs, Viz double, Yaupon, Wild foods, GRIN, Korean vegetables, Oz Indigenous bakers, Warwick vegetables
- IAASTD ten years on. Not many people hurt.
- Interesting new ILRI podcast hits the airwaves.
- And here’s another new podcast: A History of Coffee. So far so pretty good.
- Meanwhile, CIP rounds up recent webinars on germplasm health.
- Fun visualizations on the seasonality of food.
- Speaking of visualizations, RAWGraphs is a pretty neat tool.
- North America used to have a native caffeinated beverage, the attractively named Ilex vomitoria.
- Maybe South Africa’s local wild foods have a better chance.
- Using USDA’s genebank database, GRIN.
- Not sure if this Korean-American farmer does (access USDA’s genebank database, do keep up), but probably.
- I wonder if any of these Australian wild foods will find their way into a genebank, just in case.
- Genebanks like the UK veggie one at Warwick.
Brainfood: Rewilding, Neotropical domestication, Teosinte hybrids, Milpa, Wild grapes, Wild banana, Wild rice, European landrace trifecta, Ethiopian coffee double, Eco-anger
- Agricultural wilding: rewilding for agricultural landscapes through an increase in wild productive systems. But would it be sparing or sharing?
- Disentangling Domestication from Food Production Systems in the Neotropics. “Wild” is a contested concept in the Neotropics anyway.
- Evidence for Multiple Teosinte Hybrid Zones in Central Mexico. Maize systems are already pretty wild in Mexico.
- Maize intercropping in the milpa system. Diversity, extent and importance for nutritional security in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. And they’re doing pretty well, thank you very much.
- Extensive introgression among North American wild grapes (Vitis) fuels biotic and abiotic adaptation. Plenty of wilding in American grapevines too.
- Conservation status assessment of banana crop wild relatives using species distribution modelling. There’s a danger of banana de-wilding.
- A route to de novo domestication of wild allotetraploid rice. The upside of dewilding.
- Landrace added value and accessibility in Europe: what a collection of case studies tells us. Landraces can maybe help with that rewilding of agriculture in Europe, as they are mostly adapted to marginal, low-input systems.
- The Analysis of Italian Plant Agrobiodiversity Databases Reveals That Hilly and Sub-Mountain Areas Are Hotspots of Herbaceous Landraces. Like I said, landraces can help.
- Locally Adapted and Organically Grown Landrace and Ancient Spring Cereals—A Unique Source of Minerals in the Human Diet. Plus they’re good for you.
- Not my cup of coffee: Farmers’ preferences for coffee variety traits – Lessons for crop breeding in the age of climate change. Which is not to say landraces don’t need improvement every now and then.
- The potential for income improvement and biodiversity conservation via specialty coffee in Ethiopia. But in the end, it’s about the value added.
- From anger to action: Differential impacts of eco-anxiety, eco-depression, and eco-anger on climate action and wellbeing. Does any of the above make you angry? Good!
Nibbles: Costich, GHUs, Locusts, Brachiaria, Fruits & veggies, Ag data, Agroecology
- Dr Costich’s Odyssey.
- CGIAR Germplasm Health Units: Between the Scylla of spreading pests and diseases and the Charybdis of getting stuff out to genebank users too slowly.
- Turning insects into food
- Feeding cattle under the Congolese sun.
- Plenty of intoxicating fruits out there besides lotus.
- Weaving a web of data for food security.
- Europe heeds the siren song of agroecology.
Brainfood: GBIF, CWR hotspots, Feralization, Gene editing, Japanese seeds, Campesino maize, Tunisian wheat, Dietary diversity, Seed storage, GHUs
- Data integration enables global biodiversity synthesis. Biodiversity data is not enough.
- Review of congruence between global crop wild relative hotspots and centres of crop origin/diversity. Vavilov is enough.
- Feralization: Confronting the Complexity of Domestication and Evolution. Centres of diversity are not enough.
- De novo domestication of wild species to create crops with increased resilience and nutritional value. Conservation is not enough.
- Evaluating plant genetic diversity maintained by local farmers and residents: A comphrehensive assessment of continuous vegetable cultivation and seed-saving activities on a regional scale in Japan. Economic incentives are not enough.
- Beyond subsistence: the aggregate contribution of campesinos to the supply and conservation of native maize across Mexico. Small farmers could be enough.
- Unlocking the Patterns of the Tunisian Durum Wheat Landraces Genetic Structure Based on Phenotypic Characterization in Relation to Farmer’s Vernacular Name. Small farmers could be enough.
- Linkages between dietary diversity and indicators of agricultural biodiversity in Burkina Faso. Production of diverse crops could be enough.
- Seed longevity of two nutrient-dense vegetables (Amaranthus spp.). 5°C and aluminium packets are enough.
- Phytosanitary Interventions for Safe Global Germplasm Exchange and the Prevention of Transboundary Pest Spread: The Role of CGIAR Germplasm Health Units. Genebanks are not enough.