- 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.
Mo’ better veggies
In the latest Eat This Newsletter I shared this item, which may be relevant here too.
There’s no shortage of advice that we should all eat more vegetables. They are undoubtedly good for long-term health, and not eating enough vegetables is one of the top five dietary risk factors for disease. And yet, despite all the exhortations and official guidelines, globally around the world people eat only 60% by weight of the vegetables they should. What to do?
The facts above are just some I lifted from a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science: Reversing vegetable biodiversity loss to diversify diets. The authors are a who’s who of agricultural biodiversity and nutrition (many of them familiar to Eat This Podcast). They offer a four-pronged solution, avoiding the whole fruit-vegetable schism with a wise reflection: “Because culinary traditions and nutritional perceptions vary across regions, the specific edible parts and species considered vegetables can differ across cultures”.
Prong 1: Secure vegetable biodiversity for the future. Collect more vegetable diversity and make sure that existing diversity in collections is kept in good working order.
Prong 2: Harness vegetable biodiversity to deliver new varieties. Give farmers, researchers and breeders access to the collected diversity and information about it so that they can improve varieties across the whole range of vegetable species.
Prong 3: Promote vegetable biodiversity to diversify diets. Include more and more different vegetables in meals at school and at home, primarily by linking local growers to school feeding programmes and local markets.
Prong 4: Integrate vegetable biodiversity into policy frameworks for long-term impact. Of course, as night follows day, policy frameworks follow suggestions for action.
The paper is a really interesting read. It emerges from a three-year pilot project in four African countries and summarises a lot of thinking over the years. I’d love to see all countries grasp the four prongs and run with them. But, NGL, and with the greatest respect to the authors, that seems unlikely. Please, prove me wrong.
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.
Nibbles: Cambridge genebank job, Grapevine roundup, PlantSearch-Accessions, India agrobiodiversity roadmap
- Cambridge University Botanic Garden is looking for a Seed Bank Coordinator, with applications closing on 16 August.
- Our friend Colin Khoury at the New York Botanical Garden explores the remarkable diversity, evolution and cultural significance of grapevines, highlighting why these climbing plants deserve more attention.
- BGCI releases a major update to PlantSearch, expanding access to accession-level data from botanic garden collections worldwide.
- India’s National Advisory Board on Management of Genetic Resources outlines a roadmap to strengthen the conservation and sustainable use of the country’s agrobiodiversity. Hopefully botanical gardens are included.
Nibbles: Tigray grapes, Latin American opportunity crops, Hawaii & Cayman coconuts, North Macedonian collecting, South Korea seed vault, Eswatini seed hub, Expensive healthy diets
- A North Macedonian professor’s 15-year rescue mission for landraces and crops surviving only in remote villages. Why bother? Stay tuned…
- Ancient grapevines in Tigray represent a unique genetic lineage with potential value for breeding varieties adapted to dryland conditions.
- Hawai’i Public Radio checks in on Maui’s coconut genebank. Useful to breed varieties adapted to really wet conditions, presumably.
- The Cayman Islands are also hoarding coconuts, along with lots of tasty fruits.
- A USD 400,000 boost from Taiwan for the Eswatini national genebank. Indigenous vegetables get much-needed love.
- A regional survey of 25 orphan crops across 13 Latin American countries finds quinoa and amaranth well-catalogued, but characterization budgets are the real bottleneck. Collecting and conserving in genebanks is great, but not enough.
- South Korea puts 330,000 seed accessions under “double lock”, hedging against both climate change and war. Conserving in one place is not enough.
- FAO warns that nearly a third of the world can’t afford the USD 4.28 a day that a healthy diet costs — nearly three billion people, and rising. That’s why we need al the above, I guess.