Policy

April 1, 2016

Good question

Workshop7: Natural Resources & Climate Change #TFFsummit2016 #uprootingassumptions pic.twitter.com/BmMHUpMq55

— Thought For Food (@thoughtforfood_) April 1, 2016

That’s Hannes Dempewolf doing his bit to uproot assumptions about crop diversity and genebanks at the Thought for Food Summit in Zurich. We’ll let you know if the assembled youth bought it.

April 1, 2016

Global Food Policy Report the usual downer

IFPRI’s 2016 Global Food Policy Report: How We Feed the World is Unsustainable is out and it makes for sobering reading. The press release doesn’t pull any punches either.

Land area the size of Nicaragua is lost due to drought and desertification every year, putting 200 million small-scale farmers in Africa south of the Sahara at high risk of climate change

The Western diet is unsustainable—feeding just one Westerner for one year emits as much greenhouse gas as seven round trip drives from New York to Los Angeles

Thankfully, some solutions are also suggested:

The development of climate-ready crops, which can lead to more efficient water use and improve yields, are key to feeding a growing population and adapting and mitigating against climate change.

Though you’ll look in vain for a mention of genebanks as underpinning efforts to roll out what I believe should properly be called climate-smart crops. “Climate-ready” was supposed to have been quietly deep-sized some time back, I’m reliably informed, as being too reminiscent of the draeded “Roundup-ready.”

March 30, 2016April 14, 2016

Nibbles: BananaGuard, Wheat has a blast, Grow your own antibiotic, Bhutanese cypress, Natural history collections, Genebanks big & small, Better grasslands, Local foodways

Who needs resistant banana varieties when you have synthetic biology? And more.
More trouble for wheat, and climate change is to blame. Maybe Vavilov can help there too?
DIY penicillin.
Saving the sacred cypress. Try saying that quickly.
What have herbaria ever done for us? Apart from giving us endless joy, you mean?
The Indian and other ‪genebanks‬ securing the future of food. But see also our earlier post on Dr Tyagi’s paper.
Aboriginal community gets a genebank.
We need better grass. No, not that kind of grass. Well, not only that kind of grass.
A pean for African food cultures. And Pacific ones too.

March 28, 2016March 28, 2016

Brainfood: Oxygen and seeds, Chicken inbreeding, Non-IPR seed laws, Biodiversity & farm management, Soil agrobiodiversity, Biodiversity & plant protection double, Genebank conservation value, Dichotomies

Barley seed ageing: genetics behind the dry elevated pressure of oxygen ageing and moist controlled deterioration. There’s seed ageing and seed ageing, genetically speaking.
Estimates of effective population size and inbreeding in South African indigenous chicken populations: implications for the conservation of unique genetic resources. “Conservation flocks” aren’t working.
Seed laws, certification and standardization: outlawing informal seed systems in the Global South. The Man uses more than just IPR.
Farmland biodiversity and agricultural management on 237 farms in 13 European and 2 African regions. The more agriculture, the less biodiversity…
An Underground Revolution: Biodiversity and Soil Ecological Engineering for Agricultural Sustainability. …but you can do something about it…
Warming and fertilization alter the dilution effect of host diversity on disease severity. …and this is why you should: plant diversity means better protection against pests and diseases.
Multi-country evidence that crop diversification promotes ecological intensification of agriculture. No, really.
Assessing the conservation value of ex situ seed bank collections of endangered wild plants. It’s not just the number of species.
Biotechnology or organic? Extensive or intensive? Global or local? A critical review of potential pathways to resolve the global food crisis. “…no single pathway will work in every situation.”

March 8, 2016March 8, 2016

Nibbles: CC & death, GBIF enhancements, Killer fungi, Lion trees, Old oaks, Gourmet ganja, Wild horses, Resistant cassava, Contested agronomy, p-values

Climate change is going to hit us where we live. Or die.
How to make GBIF more relevant for agrobiodiversity: a 10-point plan.
Killer fungi on the loose? ‘Twas ever thus. But genomics will save us?
Planting trees is good for lions too.
There are still medieval oaks in England.
“…where sommelier-like ‘budtenders’ sell gourmet ganja in a designer showroom.”
Rewilding the wild horse.
More about the cassava variety Kasetsart 50, poster child for CGIAR impact.
It’s not just genetic resources that are contested. Yep, agronomy too.
“Scientific conclusions and business or policy decisions should not be based only on whether a p-value passes a specific threshold.”