- Jeremy’s latest newsletter covers in more depth things we just Nibbled here, including perry and ancient bananas, plus much other stuff. We talked about “wild rice” here a couple of times.
- As for actual rice, the controversy between India and Pakistan about the origin of Basmati just got a bit more complicated. Could it in fact have come from Afghanistan?
- Maybe everyone should listen to Dr Amber Scholz’s ideas about ABS.
- Meanwhile, India’s National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources regional centre in Kumaon has been busy collecting germplasm. No word on whether that includes rice, Basmati or otherwise.
- Pretty cool way of presenting accession data, courtesy of Mystery Haze. I wonder where that’s from originally.
Double de-coupling ABS
Dr Amber Hartman Scholz gave the latest GROW Webinar last week, and her talk and PowerPoint are now online: “Digital Sequence Information: A Looming Disaster or Hidden Opportunity for Positive Change?”
Dr Scholz has been working on the project Wissenschaftliche Lösungsansätze für Digitale Sequenzinformation (Scientific approaches for digital sequence information), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, about which we have blogged before. If you’re interested in biodiversity access and benefit sharing (ABS), and in particular what to do about digital sequence information (DSI), it’s well worth listening to the presentation and Q&A as a whole.
But here’s a spoiler: Dr Scholz is optimistic that there may be a way forward in what she calls “de-coupling.” That is, not tying benefit sharing to access to a particular bit of DSI, but rather designing a system whereby fee-paying membership of a club allows access to all DSI.
That sounds like the subscription system that the Plant Treaty has been considering for a while. So Dr Scholz is really suggesting a double de-coupling, because her idea would also de-couple ABS on the physical material from ABS on DIS, resulting in two parallel but connected multilateral systems.
Thoughts?
Nibbles: Missouri wine, Ancient Chinese beer, UNFSS, Biodiversity & agriculture & diets, Container genebank
- Missouri has been important to wine. Very important.
- And China to beer.
- 7 things that are important for future food systems. Spoiler alert: diversity underpins all 7.
- Why biodiversity is important to diets. And vice versa.
- Why biodiversity is important to agriculture. And vice versa.
- No worries, now anyone can have a genebank.
Nibbles: New Roots for Restoration Biology Integration Institute, Olive genebanks, Saving old grapevines
- New institute to restore ecosystems, including agricultural ones, gets money.
- Some olive-based ecosystems certainly need restoration, good thing there are genebanks.
- Sometimes, restoring ecosystems means digging up old grapevines and moving them down the road.
Nibbles: Seeds, Hazelnut double, Perry pears, Bananas in Puerto Rico
- Save food diversity, chef says.
- All well and good, but Nutella is driving hazelnut monoculture in Italy.
- Let them make wood vinegar!
- No doubt perry pears will be next for the monoculture treatment.
- Bananas are way ahead of pears, perry or otherwise.