Category: Training

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Nibbles: Spanish wine, Wild bananas, African tree seeds, Ancient Foodways, Coffee genotyping, Barbados genebank, Modern plant breeding myths, Yam seeds, Climate funding for food systems

  1. There’s a piece in The Guardian on how Spanish wine makers are fighting climate change by going back to old grape varieties like estaladiña.
  2. Maybe the same will happen with bananas, and its wild relatives could help? If so, it’s good we have this nifty catalogue.
  3. A pan-African tree seed platform is in the making, thanks to CIFOR-ICRAF and IKI funding. Where’s the catalogue?
  4. Here’s a video from the University of Wisconsin-Madison on A New Way of Teaching Ancient Foodways.
  5. And a video from USDA on their work on genotyping coffee collections.
  6. Meanwhile, Barbados is still thinking about building a genebank.
  7. The Genetic Literacy Project does some myth-busting (or tries to): have modern varieties decreased the diversity within crops, are contemporary plant varieties really not suitable for low-input farming, and is improving agricultural practices enough without plant breeding? Take a wild guess.
  8. Yam researchers in Benin have their own take on improving agricultural practices.
  9. More climate funding should go to food system transformation, says the Global Alliance for the Future of Food in a report. Those Spanish winemakers — and everyone else above — would probably agree.
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Nibbles: GRIN-U, Canadian seeds, Jordan genebank, Green genebank, Millets everywhere, Saving livestock diversity, Sustainable smallholders, Uli Westphal, Eat This Tomato

  1. Lots of new stuff on GRIN-U. Check out the genebank success stories in particular. How many of the things below will be successes? Lots of luck to all of them…
  2. Showcasing seeds in Canada.
  3. Setting up a new genebank in Jordan.
  4. Let’s hope it will be eco-efficient like CIAT’s. Other GROW webinars here. Yes, they’ve started up again.
  5. Embracing millets in southern Africa and India.
  6. Why livestock should not follow the example of Charles II of Spain.
  7. Supporting traditional sustainable farming in Central America.
  8. More on Uli Westphal‘s cool illustrations of crop diversity.
  9. Which include tomatoes. Don’t forget to subscribe to Jeremy’s pod.
  10. And subscribe to the GRIN-U newsletter too while you’re at it!
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Course: “Genomes, Genebanks, and Growers”

This series of three 1-credit courses provides a solid introduction to the conservation and use of plant genetic resources. The series is targeted to upper-level undergraduates, beginning graduate students, and professionals undertaking continuing education. The learning outcomes, course format, computer requirements, and list of topics for the three courses are listed below.

Interesting, no?

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Nibbles: Gulf garden, Lettuce evaluation, Jordanian olive, Kenyan seeds, Hybrid animals, FAOSTAT news

  1. Qatari botanic garden is providing training in food security, and more. Good for them.
  2. The European Evaluation Network’s lettuce boffins have themselves a meeting. Pretty amazing this made it to FreshPlaza, and with that headline.
  3. The Jordan Times pretty much mangles what is a perfectly nice, though inevitably nuanced, story about the genetic depth of Jordan’s olives.
  4. In Kenya’s seed system, whatever is not forbidden in proposed new legislation…may not be enough.
  5. Conservation through hybridization.
  6. FAOSTAT now has a bit that gives you access to national agricultural census data. Which sounds quite important but give us a few days to check it.