- What’s wrong with supermarkets.
- Cate Blanchett on the Millennium Seed Bank. Attitude to supermarkets unknown.
- Access & Benefit Sharing 101. Cate Blanchett unavailable for comment.
- Experts weigh in on how we should change how we eat. Nobody but Cate Blanchett will listen, but supermarkets and seeds feature, for what it’s worth.
- How they ate in the Middle Ages without supermarkets. Or at least harvested.
- After we’re done with medieval haymaking, let’s bring back the aurochs too. And put it in a supermarket?
- Yeah but what is a breed anyway? Or an aurochs, for that matter.
Nibbles: Cherokee Three Sisters, Australian native grains, Ancient Peruvian irrigation, Indian apples, IFOAM Seed Platform, MSB, Chinese conservation, Protected areas, Soybeans breeding, Funding cuts
- Three Sisters rematriated to historical Cherokee Nation.
- Native grains returning to Indigenous land in Australia too.
- May need to bring back agricultural practices too, like in Peru.
- Meanwhile, in India, farmers are trying to grow apples in new places. Go figure.
- Anyway, seems like the IFOAM Seeds Platform might be able to help.
- And genebanks too of course, like the Millennium Seed Bank.
- As part of a comprehensive conservation systems, goes without saying, like in China.
- Which also include climate-proof protected areas.
- It worked for soybeans, after all.
- Well, for now anyway…
We knead oil
Jeremy’s latest newsletter has agrobiodiversity-adjacent snippets on the re-making of an ancient bread in Turkey and on the “oenification of olive oil.” Plus a thing on oysters which is maybe not so adjacent but is also fun and sports a title that is worth the price of admission on its own. Read it.
Nibbles: Agrobiodiversity, HealthyDiets4Africa, Warwick genebank, NPGS trifecta, Florida potatoes, On farm, Guatemalan community seed banks, Welsh black oats, WorldVeg genebank, Turkish olive genebank, Citrus genebank, Orchard of Flavours, Piper diversity, Ancient Egyptian food, Chocolate & world history, Ancient DNA & breeding
- What has agrobiodiversity ever done for us? Kent Nnadozie of the Plant Treaty lays it out.
- Michael Frei of the HealthyDiets4Africa project doesn’t need it laid out.
- Neither do the people who awarded a prize to Charlotte Allender of the UK Vegetable Genebank.
- What has the US National Plant Germplasm System ever done for anyone? The Guardian, the NY Times and NPR News lay it out. I guess someone in D.C. needs it laid out, but will it make any difference?
- Everyone: Potatoes in Florida! Breeders: No problem. NPGS: You called?
- Here’s The Guardian again, but this time thinking it is making the case for not putting seeds in the fridge, whereas in fact it’s making the case for the complementarity of ex situ and on-farm conservation.
- Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s a couple of pieces on community seed banks in Guatemala.
- Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s the heart-warming story of Welsh organic farmer Gerald Miles.
- Meanwhile, the World Vegetable Centre opens a new genebank.
- And Türkiye hosts an international, no less, olive genebank.
- And genebanks can be so beautiful, like works of art. Former Tate Modern director Vicente Todolí lays out his citrus samples. I wonder what he could do with olives.
- Botanic gardens are beautiful and often act a little bit like crop genebanks. Here’s an example from Portugal I stumbled onto recently, I forget how.
- You know what I’d like to see? An international pepper genebank, that’s what. No, not the kind that might be in those Guatemalan community seedbanks or the WorldVeg genebank. This sort of pepper. Piper pepper.
- I bet the ancient Egyptians had pepper. Egyptian archaeologist Mennat-Allah El Dorry lays out what else they had.
- Maybe you could lay out world history using pepper. You can definitely do so using cacao and chocolate.
- No, not using ancient DNA, but actually…
Nibbles: USDA NPGS, Korean seed museum, Endangered plants, National security, Sicilian grapevines, Mike Jackson again
- A way to get free seeds from the US government? Yeah probably not. And if so, maybe not for long?
- Ok, let’s try the Korean government then.
- A way to find endangered plants in the US. And get the government to protect them, of course.
- A way to ensure national security? Why, conserving crop diversity of course. Government unavailable for comment.
- A way to ensure the future of Sicilian wine? See above.
- A genebanker looks back on the 1990s. And, given all of the above, sees that not much has changed?