- Global meta-analysis reveals overall benefits of silvopastoral systems for biodiversity. They’re not bad on their own, but the best thing for biodiversity would be to integrate silvopastoral systems with protected areas.
- Priority areas for investment in more sustainable and climate-resilient livestock systems. India, Brazil, China, Pakistan and Sudan, apparently.
- Farming cattle in the tropics: Transnational science and industrializing pastures in Brazil. But would investment in Brachiaria-based silvopastoral systems in Brazil be a good thing? I guess it depends.
- Country Perspectives on Hay-Making Landscapes as Part of the European Agricultural Heritage. No Brachiaria in sight.
- Genomic diversity and relationship analyses of endangered German Black Pied cattle (DSN) to 68 other taurine breeds based on whole-genome sequencing. It has a small population, but this ancestor of the Holstein is still pretty diverse. No word on whether it likes Brachiaria.
- The meaning of wild: Genetic and adaptive consequences from large-scale releases of domestic mallards. “Wild is not singular.” Let that sink in while you contemplate your mallard-based silvopastoral system.
- Key tropical crops at risk from pollinator loss due to climate change and land use. I’m sure the right silvopastoral systems would be great for pollinators.
- eDNA metabarcoding of avocado flowers: ‘Hass’ it got potential to survey arthropods in food production systems? Yes it does. So now we can monitor the performance of those silvopastoral systems pretty easily.
Nibbles: Community seedbanks everywhere, USDA genebanks, Public sector plant breeding, Salinity tolerance, Food systems transformation
- Community seedbanks are so big in Zimbabwe that international NGOs are jumping on the bandwagon.
- More from the Cherokee Nation Seed Bank, very much a friend of the blog. International NGOs unavailable for comment.
- Community seedbanks are also in the news in Mexico.
- And in Peru, of course. Oh, here’s a nice video from Peru on Andean roots and tubers, courtesy of CIP, since we’re here.
- Indonesia too, you say? Yeah, why not.
- How to protect genebank collections from climate change, courtesy of USDA. Community seedbanks please take note.
- Who’s going to use all that diversity? Well public sector plant breeders of course.
- Yes, even plant breeders working on Salicornia.
- But how much of the 6 trillion dollars needed for food systems transformation is going to go to genebanks and plant breeding?
Branfood: Salinity tolerance, Comestibles, Underused species, On farm diversity, Minor cereals, Fragrant millet, Wild yams, Fonio, Winged bean, Giant taro, Nutmeg, Mungbean, Finger millet, Amaranth
- Salt-Tolerant Crops: Time to Deliver. Sure, breeding for salt tolerance using crop wild relatives is great, but have you tried just domesticating salt-tolerant wild species?
- Wild and cultivated comestible plant species in the Gulf of Mexico: phylogenetic patterns and convergence of type of use. No word on how many are salt-tolerant.
- Underutilized plants increase biodiversity, improve food and nutrition security, reduce malnutrition, and enhance human health and well-being. Let’s put them back on the plate! No word on how many are salt-tolerant.
- Indigenous crop diversity maintained despite the introduction of major global crops in an African centre of agrobiodiversity. If you want local crop diversity in Highland Ethiopia, look for it on the farms of the poorest. No word on how many are “underutilized”.
- The role of minor cereals in food and nutrition security in Bangladesh: constraints to sustainable production. Low yields, apparently. I think it could do with having aromatic grains. If only there was a way to make that happen…
- De novo creation of popcorn-like fragrant foxtail millet. Yeah, sometimes neither the crop not its wild relatives has the genes for it. Still, if you can edit in aroma, why not salt-tolerance?
- Global Genepool Conservation and Use Strategy for Dioscorea (Yam). I wonder how many of these 27 wild species could usefully be domesticated. Or are salt-tolerant.
- Towards conservation and sustainable use of an indigenous crop: A large partnership network enabled the genetic diversity assessment of 1539 fonio (Digitaria exilis) accessions. This is how you start to undo underutilization. I’m sure someone will edit it next.
- Diversity Assessment of Winged Bean [Psophocarpus tetragonolobus (L.) DC.] Accessions from IITA Genebank. Same as above, but with one hundredth as many accessions. I guess winged bean is even more underutilized than fonio.
- The forgotten giant of the Pacific: a review on giant taro (Alocasia macrorrhizos (L.) G.Don). Sad to say it doesn’t seem to be salt-tolerant. Maybe it’s aromatic, though. Or could be gene-edited to become so. Wouldn’t that be something.
- Retracing the center of origin and evolutionary history of nutmeg Myristica fragrans, an emblematic spice tree species. No need for editing, let’s just conserve the really diverse populations of the North Moluccas.
- Demographic history and distinct selection signatures of two domestication genes in mungbean. Domesticating the mungbean wasn’t all that easy. Hope it’s easier for some random salt-tolerant wild species.
- A plausible screening approach for moisture stress tolerance in finger millet (Eleusine coracana L.) germplasm accessions using membership function value at the seedling stage. Will it work on fonio? Or salt-tolerance?
- Adoption and impact of improved amaranth cultivars in Tanzania using DNA fingerprinting. So can we stop calling it underutilized? And start gene-editing it for aroma?
Rice everywhere
Jeremy’s latest Eat This Newsletter has three — count them — pieces on rice. Here’s one of them. Do check out the others too though.
Rice by Any Other Name
Sometimes, I read an article and I marvel at the erudition it contains even when I cannot fully understand it. So it was with Deepa Reddy’s deep dive into Rice names & Memory work. She makes a strong case for the importance of names that describe Indian farmer varieties of rice and tell us more about them, but of course without any familiarity for the language much of the story was lost on me. One tidbit I picked up on: “Njavara with its potent medicinal value is ‘wild water grass,’ like the ‘Nivara’ of the old texts.” Oryza nivara is one of rice’s closest wild relatives. Is Njavara that wild relative, or a cultivar that resembles, or something else entirely?
The article contains a lot more in the intersection of agriculture, anthropology and ethnography and one bit that I hope to see explored further. The rice festival on which Deepa Reddy reported included a demonstration of the importance of memorisation to oral tradition, “by having a few young children recite, from top-to-bottom and entirely from memory, all the hundred-odd names of rices revived, conserved, and now grown in Tamil Nadu by local farmers”. She goes on to say:
Such memory practices and names do a lot more than just remind and entice; they help us understand the still vast array of heritage rices by telling us something about them, helping us to get to know them, remember them, choose between them, and by such methods safeguard them for all the time to come.
Yes, but what are the mnemonics that the children use? A memory palace for rice?
Nibbles: Heirloom pean, Genebanks, Students, Community seedbanks, Kunming fund, Kenyan sorghum, Italian grapes, Wild tomatoes, Mouflon, Coffee poster, Early modern watermelons, Korean language, Farmers’ rights
- Why heirloom seeds matter.
- Why genebanks full of heirloom seeds matter. Even to kids.
- Why community seedbanks full of heirloom seeds matter.
- Just how much agrobiodiversity matters, according to FAO.
- Why heirloom seeds of neglected crops matter.
- Why heirloom seeds of sorghum matter in Kenya. No, really.
- Why heirloom grapes matter in Italy.
- Why seeds of wild tomatoes matter.
- Even wild sheep matter.
- Why visualizing coffee diversity matters.
- Why watermelons mattered in the 17th century.
- Why bottle gourds mattered to Koreans.
- Why farmers’ rights matter.