- RICA: A rice crop calendar for Asia based on MODIS multi year data. RiceAtlas validated. Still trying to figure out how to mash it up with genebank accession locality data though. Any GIS geniuses out there to help me?
- AEGIS, the Virtual European Genebank: Why It Is Such a Good Idea, Why It Is Not Working and How It Could Be Improved. Certify genebanks, that’s how.
- Reap the crop wild relatives for breeding future crops. Needs good data and certified genebanks. Plus gene editing.
- Opportunities and Challenges to Improve a Public Research Program in Plant Breeding and Enhance Underutilized Plant Genetic Resources in the Tropics. Needs better social networking. Plus better data and certified genebanks, presumably.
- From seed to sequence: Dematerialization and the battle to (re)define genetic resources. Ah yes, data.
- Current Advancements and Limitations of Gene Editing in Orphan Crops. Ah yes, gene editing.
- Revitalizing Traditional Agricultural Practices: Conscious Efforts to Create a More Satisfying Culture. Meanwhile, in Sweden…
- Sacred natural sites and biodiversity conservation: a systematic review. Of course sacred sites are good for biodiversity. But it’s always good to have the data.
- Global relationships between crop diversity and nutritional stability. Sacred sites are not enough, alas.
- Preserving local biodiversity through crop diversification. Crop diversity is even good for birds…
- Concentrating vs. spreading our footprint: how to meet humanity’s needs at least cost to nature. …but, overall intensification of agriculture coupled with sparing land for conservation (maybe even in sacred sites) is the best approach for wildlife. And humanity, for that matter. So, back to needing better data from certified genebanks, so we can get that intensification done, right?
- Quantifying the scale of genetic diversity extinction in the Anthropocene. Right!
Nibbles: Oil palm, Diverse forestry, Financing biodiversity
- Parasites of oil palm monocultures as avatars of hope and justice.
- 30 ways to leave your monoculture.
- French take on investing in natural capital. Hopefully not oil palm monocultures though.
Seeds going green
The Global Conference on Green Development of Seed Industries is organized by FAO as a means to provide a neutral forum for its members, partners, industry and opinion leaders, and other stakeholders to engage in focused dialogues on how best to make quality seeds of preferred productive, nutritious and resilient crop varieties available to farmers.
It’s online, 4-5 November.
Themes include, and I quote from the website again:
- Advanced technologies. The conference will review the advances in modern plant breeding technologies, emerging biotechnologies and informatics technologies and how they can be used safely and efficiently to enhance the delivery of genetic gains to farmers. Importantly, the conference will also facilitate a stocktaking of the available tools.
- Conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. The conference will be a forum for reviewing the state of knowledge of crop diversity, its conservation and availability, and its underpinning role in resilient and sustainable agri-food systems. It will further explore how the use of crop diversity may be positively influenced through a wide range of actions taking place in situ, on-farm or ex situ as part of an interdependent global system.
- Crop varietal development and adoption. The conference offers a unique opportunity to review select case studies to identify the drivers of success. Particular attention will be paid to the validated means for the deployment of scientific progress in nurturing environments that permit mutually beneficial partnerships amongst the multiplicity of actors.
- Seed systems. The conference will explore what has worked in transforming ineffective systems into responsive and dynamic ones that provide the solutions farmers need so that successes may be replicated. The roles of international seed trade and the requisite harmonization of legal frameworks will be explored, especially in the context of the solutions that work for the production systems of small-scale farmers.
- Policy and governance. The conference will be an opportunity to explore the enabling environment – at national, regional and global levels – for seed systems and the associated upstream domains of germplasm conservation and plant breeding.
Nibbles: Solutionism, Gigantism, Summitism, Exhibitionism
- Apps: how not to solve the problem of kids’ nutrition.
- Giant pumpkins: solving a problem that doesn’t really exist.
- UNFSS: a waste of time or a first, necessary step in solving the problem of our age?
- Museums: if in doubt about a problem, build one.
Brainfood: Coconut cloning, Apricot diversity, European ag double, Diet seasonality, Farm size, Ethiopian seeds, Biocultural diversity, Aquatic food, Grasslands, Pollinator mixtures
- Development of the first axillary in vitro shoot multiplication protocol for coconut palms. Cloning the tree of life, really fast.
- Frequent germplasm exchanges drive the high genetic diversity of Chinese-cultivated common apricot germplasm. Looking forward to the same being said about coconut.
- Crop diversity effects on temporal agricultural production stability across European regions. The effects are good.
- Are agricultural sustainability and resilience complementary notions? Evidence from the North European agriculture. They are indeed, but what about stability though?
- Seasonal variability of women’s dietary diversity and food provisioning: a cohort study in rural Burkina Faso. Do Europe now.
- The “Sweet Spot” in the Middle: Why Do Mid-Scale Farms Adopt Diversification Practices at Higher Rates? Spoiler alert: it’s got less to do with farm size than with access to resources and markets. At least for Californian lettuce farmers.
- Politics of seeds in Ethiopia’s agricultural transformation: pathways to seed system development. The Ethiopian seed system needs diversification just as much as Californian lettuce farmers.
- Biocultural Diversity for Food System Transformation Under Global Environmental Change. What we all need is biocultural diversity.
- Harnessing the diversity of small-scale actors is key to the future of aquatic food systems. Yes, all of us, whether in mountains or by the sea.
- Combatting global grassland degradation. It may be stretching a point, but biocultural diversity may also be a useful lens through which to look at grassland restoration and sustainable management. But then I would say that.
- Supporting wild pollinators in agricultural landscapes through targeted legume mixtures. Yeah, let’s not forget the pollinators while we’re at it.