- Impacts of Global Food Systems on Biodiversity and Water: The Vision of Two Reports and Future Aims. It’s all connected, and not in a good way.
- On‐Site Capabilities of a Mobile Laboratory for Aquatic Germplasm Cryopreservation. Not so easy for plants, alas.
- Biogeography and conservation status of the pineapple family (Bromeliaceae). The Atlantic Forest, the northern Andes and Central America.
- A review of types of risks in agriculture: What we know and what we need to know. Very few studies look beyond production risk, largely ignoring four other types of risk, and the prevalence of multiple risks.
- Visual and olfactory floral cues related to ambophilous pollination systems in Poaceae. Insects can facilitate pollination in some grasses.
- Cassava Trait Preferences of Men and Women Farmers in Nigeria: Implications for Breeding. Women select on quality, men on agronomy.
- Phenotypic and physiological responses to salt exposure in Sorghum reveal diversity among domesticated landraces. Salinity tolerance was acquired early in domestication and then maintained or lost depending on prevalent soil conditions.
- Combining Focused Identification of Germplasm and Core Collection Strategies to Identify Genebank Accessions for Central European Soybean Breeding. Pre-core FIGS subset based on adaptation to high-latitude cold regions, followed by coring using genotype data: from >17,000 to 366 accessions.
- Adaptive introgression during environmental change can weaken reproductive isolation. Reverse speciation is upon us.
- The future of legume genetic data resources: Challenges, opportunities, and priorities. Centralize and standardise. Good luck with that.
- Application of Mixed Methods to Identify Small Ruminant Disease Priorities in Ethiopia. National disease controls programmes may be on the wrong track.
- Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum Gaertn.) landraces cultivated by Yi people in Liangshan, China. 13 landraces, but not very well differentiated as to use.
- The draft genome of a wild barley genotype reveals its enrichment in genes related to biotic and abiotic stresses compared to cultivated barley. More genes, more alleles in known genes.
- The endemic ‘sugar canes’ of Madagascar (Poaceae, Saccharinae: Lasiorhachis) are close relatives of sorghum. Closer than some actual Sorghum spp.
- Large genetic yield potential and genetic yield gap estimated for wheat in Europe. Long way to go to match the potential, modelled yield of ideotypes.
Brainfood: Diversification, Chefs, African rice breeding, Sustainable livestock, Miscanthus origin, Sweetpotato diversity, Wild banana seeds, Olive diversity, Tilapia diversity, Half Earth, Food access, Speedy pigeonpea, Peanut allergy, Colombian seed saving
- Modelling crop diversification and association effects in agricultural systems. Intercrop, people!
- Cooking up Diverse Diets: Advancing Biodiversity in Food and Agriculture through Collaborations with Chefs. Yeah, yeah, chefs are great. Now show me the data.
- Multivariate analysis and selection criteria for identification of African rice (Oryza glaberrima) for genetic improvement of indica rice cultivars. Go for high number of productive tillers and early maturity.
- Strategies for Sustainable Use of Indigenous Cattle Genetic Resources in Southern Africa. Not just genetic improvement: also need better nutrition, healthcare, marketing, and infrastructure; integration and empowerment of women and youth; and capacity building, regulatory, and policy frameworks. Not unlike crops, really.
- Population structure of Miscanthus sacchariflorus reveals two major polyploidization events, tetraploid-mediated unidirectional introgression from diploid M. sinensis, and diversity centred around the Yellow Sea. The centre of origin in under water.
- Remote sensing for agricultural applications: A meta-review. Yeah, yeah. Call me when you have a way of distinguishing landraces from modern varieties.
- Genetic Diversity of Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas L. Lam) Germplasms Collected Worldwide Using Chloroplast SSR Markers. 500 is not enough.
- Seed germination and storage studies in seed-fertile Musa indandamanensis and its conservation. Intermediate.
- Cultivated olive diversification at local and regional scales: evidence from the genetic characterization of French genetic resources. Areas with unexpected frosts have been, paradoxically, good for olive diversity.
- Genetic diversity of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) throughout West Africa. Corresponds to river basins. Well there’s a shocker.
- Protecting half of the planet could directly affect over one billion people. Add lowest-footprint pixels to PAs until you get to 50% coverage of each ecoregion, then count how many people live in PAs, for good or ill.
- Food Access Deficiencies in Sub-saharan Africa: Prevalence and Implications for Agricultural Interventions. Livestock helps, higher income not necessarily.
- Can a speed breeding approach accelerate genetic gain in pigeonpea? I’m going to guess yes.
- Hypoallergen Peanut Lines Identified Through Large-Scale Phenotyping of Global Diversity Panel: Providing Hope Toward Addressing One of the Major Global Food Safety Concerns. Lots of diversity to play with.
- Revolturas: resisting multinational seed corporations and legal seed regimes through seed-saving practices and activism in Colombia. Everybody’s at it.
Nibbles: Cheese history, RethinkX, Cosmopolitan Chicken, Natural capital accounting, Supply chains, Healthy policies, NordGen
- Fruit flies facilitated the birth of the hybrid yeast that made cheese possible. Thanks, fruitfly!
- Ah, but an upgrade is coming: precision fermentation.
- How business can track its effects on biodiversity. Should it want to.
- How to make it easier, more profitable and more sustainable to bring healthy foods to market. Someone mash it up with the above?
- How to design policies for countries seeking to provide healthy diets. Someone mash it up with the above?
- 40 years of NordGen. Happy birthday! Then someone mash it up with the above…
- Celebrating poultry diversity through art. No need for mashing, just celebrate the weirdness.
Brainfood: Cassava diversity, Landrace diversity double, Soybean oil quality, Cucurbit domestication, Carrot colours, Pharaonic emmer, Teosinte RILs, Chinese pigs, Brazilian apples, Teosinte diversity, Forests & diets, Forest productivity, Agricultural productivity
- A global overview of cassava genetic diversity. The African germplasm is different from the Latin American, but not by that much.
- Genetic variability in landraces populations and the risk to lose genetic variation. The example of landrace ‘Kyperounda’ and its implications for ex situ conservation. Better genetically to conserve landraces as sub-lines. But financially?
- Impact of merging commercial breeding lines on the genetic diversity of Landrace pigs. Above goes for pigs too.
- Selection and Molecular Characterization of Soybeans with High Oleic Acid from Plant Germplasm of Genebank. 3 accessions have interesting variants in the relevant gene.
- Origin and domestication of Cucurbitaceae crops: insights from phylogenies, genomics and archaeology. Lots of different paths to domestication, but all involve loss of flesh bitterness, one way or another.
- Changing Carrot Color: Insertions in DcMYB7 Alter the Regulation of Anthocyanin Biosynthesis and Modification. How the carrot lost its purple.
- A 3,000-year-old Egyptian emmer wheat genome reveals dispersal and domestication history. Most closely resembles modern material from Turkey, Oman and India.
- TeoNAM: A Nested Association Mapping Population for Domestication and Agronomic Trait Analysis in Maize. With added teosinte goodness.
- Adaptive phenotypic divergence in an annual grass differs across biotic contexts. The rhizosphere affects adaptation of teosinte along an altitudinal gradient. We’ll need a Nested Association Mapping Population for that too now, no doubt.
- Population genetics assessment model reveals priority protection of genetic resources in native pig breeds in China. Most breeds have low diversity; Tibetan pigs are an exception.
- A brief history of the forty-five years of the E’AppleBP apple breeding program in Brazil. 27 new varieties seems like pretty good going.
- Testing the Various Pathways Linking Forest Cover to Dietary Diversity in Tropical Landscapes. Sometimes there’s a direct pathway (e.g., consumption of forest food), sometimes an income pathway (income from forest products used to purchase food from markets), and sometimes an agroecological pathway (forests and trees sustaining farm production). And sometimes there isn’t.
- Evolutionary diversity is associated with wood productivity in Amazonian forests. “…greater phylogenetic diversity translates into higher levels of ecosystem function.” No word on its effect on diets.
- Anatomy and resilience of the global production ecosystem. Plenty of words on its effect on diets.
Mainstreaming agrobiodiversity for nutrition
A new discussion paper from GAIN, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, looks at some indicative Policies and financing to spur appropriate private-sector engagement in food systems. “Appropriate” meaning conducive to the production and consumption of more agrobiodiverse diets. It’s not long, so you should probably read the whole thing. But here are the take-home messages, to whet your appetite, as it were:
- reduce taxes and increase subsidies on nutritious crops and foods (eg fruits and vegetables)
- amend policies which encourage biofortification and industrial fortification to also include encouraging the increased production and consumption of existing nutritious species and varieties
- make the case for diverse farming systems to impact investors and blended finance practitioners
- nudge business sustainability strategies to include biodiversity and ecosystem considerations (eg, via the Agrobiodiversity Index)
Not a comprehensive list, of course, but a pretty good start.