I guess by now the whole world knows that this year is the 15th anniversary of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, that there was another deposit last week, that the number of seed samples is now over 1.2 million from 98 genebanks, and that you can take a virtual tour of the place. But it’s a slow news day…
Brainfood: Food biodiversity, Diversification, New crops, GMO maize, African livestock, Greek innovation clusters, Amazonian native cacao
- Food Biodiversity as an Opportunity to Address the Challenge of Improving Human Diets and Food Security. Biodiversity and food security can be mutually supportive, but you need education, research and inclusion, say educators and researchers.
- Achieving win-win outcomes for biodiversity and yield through diversified farming. Biodiversity and yield both win in only about a quarter of cases. But humanity does not live by yield alone, right?
- Accelerated Domestication of New Crops: Yield is Key. Ooops, looks like humanity does live by yield alone after all.
- Genetically Modified Maize: Less Drudgery for Her, More Maize for Him? Evidence from Smallholder Maize Farmers in South Africa. No, wait, man lives by yield alone, but not woman.
- Climate Change’s Impact on Agriculture and Food Security: An Opportunity to Showcase African Animal Genetic Resources. Forget GMO maize, Africa needs to develop its own agrobiodiversity…
- Friend or Foe? The Role of Animal-Source Foods in Healthy and Environmentally Sustainable Diets. …and it need not be bad for either health or the environment.
- AgriDiverCluster: An Innovative Cluster for the Utilization of Greek Biodiversity and Plant Genetic Resources. Maybe the Greeks have a way to make it not bad for either health or the environment. By vertical integration, it looks like.
- Socio-ecological benefits of fine-flavor cacao in its center of origin. Amazonian cacao farmers also seem to have a way to vertically integrate.
Brainfood: Cryo at CIP, Cryo everywhere, Citrus conservation, Seed storage, Pollen double
- The world’s largest potato cryobank at the International Potato Center (CIP) – Status quo, protocol improvement through large-scale experiments and long-term viability monitoring. It’s been a long road, but they’re almost there…
- Overcoming Challenges for Shoot Tip Cryopreservation of Root and Tuber Crops. …but there’s a bit further to go for other roots and tubers….
- Conserving Citrus Diversity: From Vavilov’s Early Explorations to Genebanks around the World. …and citrus.
- Seed Longevity — The Evolution of Knowledge and a Conceptual Framework. The road goes on forever.
- The 3D Pollen Project: An open repository of three-dimensional data for outreach, education and research. The road has to begin somewhere.
- Pollen Cryobanking—Implications in Genetic Conservation and Plant Breeding. And we’re off…
Want to generate a 33x return on investment?
Using an 8% discount rate, the net present value of the costs of… [X] …is estimated at $61 billion for the next 35 years, while the net present benefits in terms of net economic surplus (the sum of consumer and producer surplus) are estimated at $2.1 trillion.
Wow, that’s a pretty good deal, what could X possibly be? Oh lookie here, turns out X is agricultural R&D. According to a report by assorted boffins from the Copenhagen Consensus Center and IFPRI, that is.
Bjorn Lomborg of said CCC has a decent go at summarizing the report in a recent op-ed, though the framing as Green Revolution 2.0 seems a little tired to me. ((He seems oddly ill-prepared in a later interview with, ahem, Jordan Peterson.))
Research published this week by Copenhagen Consensus demonstrates that the world will only need to spend a small amount more each year to generate vast benefits. It estimates the additional cost of R&D this decade is about $5.5 billion annually—a relatively small sum, less even than Americans spend on ice cream every year.
This investment will generate better seeds and high-yield crops that can also better handle weather changes like those we will see from climate change. Creating bigger and more resilient harvests will benefit farmers and producing more food will help consumers with lower prices.
The report doesn’t go into exactly what the $61 billion ought to be spent on, but I hope genebanks turn out to be on the list.
Brainfood: Why measure genetic diversity?
- Genetic diversity goals and targets have improved, but remain insufficient for clear implementation of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. The struggle to ensure recognition of the importance of measuring genetic diversity is real, despite the available tools. And despite the range of uses to which the results can be put, as illustrated in the following papers.
- DNA barcoding markers provide insight into species discrimination, genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships of yam (Dioscorea spp.). Measuring genetic diversity can help you tell species apart.
- Genetic diversity and population structure of barley landraces from Southern Ethiopia’s Gumer district: Utilization for breeding and conservation. Measuring genetic diversity can help you decide what’s new and what to use in breeding.
- Management of genetic erosion: The (successful) case study of the pear (Pyrus communis L.) germplasm of the Lazio region (Italy). Measuring genetic diversity can help you detect genetic erosion and figure out what to do about it.
- Genetic and Pomological Determination of the Trueness-to-Type of Sweet Cherry Cultivars in the German National Fruit Genebank. Measuring genetic diversity can help you fix mistakes in genebanks.
- Genetic diversity and local adaption of alfalfa populations (Medicago sativa L.) under long-term grazing. Measuring genetic diversity can help you identify adaptive genes.
- A common resequencing-based genetic marker data set for global maize diversity. Measuring genetic diversity can help you pinpoint useful flowering genes.
- Genome-wide association study of variation in cooking time among common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) accessions using Diversity Arrays Technology markers. Measuring genetic diversity can help you identify carbon-friendly genes.
- Dissecting the genetic architecture of leaf morphology traits in mungbean (Vigna radiata (L.) Wizcek) using genome-wide association study. Measuring genetic diversity can help you find plants with nice leaves.
- Genetic Diversity Strategy for the Management and Use of Rubber Genetic Resources: More than 1,000 Wild and Cultivated Accessions in a 100-Genotype Core Collection. Measuring genetic diversity can help you go from over 1000 accessions to under 100.
- Sustainable seed harvesting in wild plant populations. Measuring genetic diversity can help you model optimal germplasm collecting strategies.
- Genetics of randomly bred cats support the cradle of cat domestication being in the Near East. Measuring genetic diversity can tell you where the cat was domesticated.
- Bacterial species diversity of traditionally ripened sheep legs from the Faroe Islands (skerpikjøt). Measuring genetic diversity can help you figure out how to ripen sheep legs properly.