- A universally applicable definition for domestication. Domestication is just evolution in anthropogenic environments.
- Early evidence for pig domestication (8,000 cal. BP) in the Lower Yangtze, South China. Evolution in anthropogenic environments can follow different pathways.
- Orphan crops of archaeology-based crop history research. Some crops are also neglected by archaeologists. Maybe because they weren’t domesticated enough?
- Catastrophic fires and soil degradation: possible association with the Neolithic revolution in the southern Levant. Domestication was caused by lightning.
- Altiplano agricultural origins was a process of economic resilience, not hardship: Isotope chemistry, zooarchaeology, and archaeobotany in the Titicaca Basin, 5.5-3.0 ka. Farming was not caused by anything so traumatic as lightning on the Altiplano.
- Changing human-cattle relationships in Ireland: a 6000-year isotopic perspective. Open land management of cattle in the Iron Age led to their central position in Irish culture. Maybe lightning was involved in clearing the land?
- Re-thinking the ‘Green Revolution’ in the Mediterranean world. The impact of the Islamic Green Revolution was down to more than just new crops and irrigation. Bit like the modern Green Revolution then?
- Roman Atlantic garum: DNA confirms sardine use and population continuity in north-western Iberia. You can characterize and compare old fish remains based on the DNA that survived fermentation at the bottom of ancient salting vats.
- Exploration of crop germplasm resources knowledge mining in Chinese ancient books: a route toward sustainable agriculture. You can characterize and compare old rice varieties based on the descriptions that survived in ancient chronicles. Maybe pig varieties too?
Who feeds the world anyway?
For decades, the mantra of “feeding the world” has dominated discussions about agricultural development and food security. The logic sounds straightforward: more food production equals less hunger.
Michael Grunwald, in his new book Feeding the World But Killing the Planet, acknowledges agriculture’s environmental toll but insists that industrial farming—backed by technological fixes—is necessary to meet humanity’s caloric demands. He doesn’t challenge the system, he documents ways to optimize it.
But others argue this is a dangerous simplification. In The Enduring Fantasy of “Feeding the World”, which starts by quoting Grunwald, authors from the Agroecology Research-Action Collective contend that hunger isn’t primarily about food shortages — it’s about poverty, inequality, and political exclusion. The production-first mantra, they argue, legitimizes destructive farming practices that serve elites while leaving the root causes of hunger untouched. They come up with a slogan of their own for the alternative: “a world that feeds itself.”
One camp calls for systemic change — agroecology, local food sovereignty, and policies that tackle inequality. The other seeks to refine the existing model with new technologies that deliver efficiency gains. Both see the ecological risks, but diverge on whether to reinvent or retrofit the system. 1
It occurs to me that I could fall back on my own usual ploy of observing with a self-satisfied smirk that, either way, crop diversity will be needed. But maybe it’s time to do away with catchphrases altogether. It’s more complicated, and more important, than that.
Brainfood: Agroforestry, Afro-descendant conservation, Opportunity crops, Off-farm income, Phureja conservation, European taro, Argania products, Honeybee intensification, Mycorrhizal hotspots
- Effects of tree cover and crop diversity on biodiversity and food security in tropical agricultural landscapes. In tropical agricultural landscapes, modest tree cover in diverse cropping systems supports higher biodiversity and higher crop yields, demonstrating that agroforestry can deliver win-win synergy between conservation and food production.
- Afro-descendant lands in South America contribute to biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. I guess biodiverse landscapes managed according to traditional knowledge deliver superior environmental outcomes not just in farms with trees but also in forested territories under community management.
- Science for Africa’s future food security: reimagining the histories and futures of underutilised crops. Reviving indigenous, underutilised crops in sub-Saharan Africa by restoring their historical and cultural significance can enhance nutritional diversity, climate resilience and food security, paralleling the evidence above that culturally rooted, biodiversity-rich systems are good for both the environment and communities.
- Off-farm income and dietary diversity in subsistence farming in Burundi. Across rural and urban settings, from farms to forests to cities, culture-informed, biodiversity-rich food systems offer interlocking benefits: ecological resilience, climate mitigation, improved nutrition, and community empowerment. Or am I stretching a point here?
- Cultivar loss and conservation of genetic resources of the phureja potato (Solanum phureja L., Phureja Group) in Peru. Traditional Andean farming communities are witnessing the disappearance of this culturally significant diploid potato group, which has rich genetic diversity and interesting adaptations, highlighting an urgent need for in situ conservation to preserve it. Oh wow, look, locally rooted, biodiversity-rich farming systems, anchored in cultural heritage, are key to sustaining ecosystem services, safeguarding genetic diversity, and building climate-resilient, equitable food futures. Again.
- Taro (Colocasia esculenta) in Europe: a journey through fields, botanical gardens, ditches and city markets. This culturally important root crop was introduced in Europe in antiquity and now survives in fields, markets, and even city waterways as both ornament and food, but despite its genetic and cultural richness, it remains under-researched and requires both ex situ and in situ conservation to safeguard its long-term use. So yep, even this one says that conserving crop diversity through culturally embedded, multi-dimensional stewardship is essential for strengthening food security and preserving heritage in a changing climate.
- Innovation of argan (Argania spinosa (L.) Skeels) products and byproducts for sustainable development of rural communities in Morocco. A systematic literature review. Innovative uses of argan tree products and by-products in Morocco, from bioplastics and biochar to livestock feed and natural repellents, offer promising pathways for conservation, cultural preservation, and rural economic development, provided local communities are actively engaged in participatory management. Where have I heard that before?
- Negative ecological impacts of honeybees begin at densities below recommended levels for crop pollination. Too many honeybee hives can reduce wild bee abundance, species richness, and fruit yield on farms, even when wildflower strips are present, suggesting that ecological balance is disrupted when managed pollinators outcompete native species. Which can probably be cleverly connected with all of the above with a little more time than I have at the moment.
- Global hotspots of mycorrhizal fungal richness are poorly protected. What can I tell you, we need in situ conservation for mycorrhiza too. And machine learning can help us figure out where best to do it. For all of the above, and more, naturally.
Genebanks learn to be SCRAPPY
In a recent post here I suggested that, despite frequent recourse to the comparison, genebanks are in fact not much like libraries, at least when it comes to deciding which of their contents can safely be jettisoned, or moved elsewhere. For this, librarians sometimes use the ejection criteria summarized by the acronym MUSTY: Misleading, Ugly, Superseded, Trivial and Your collection 2. But those are not really all that appropriate for genebanks, I argued in the earlier post.
Well, if not MUSTY, what?
Genebanks should of course have a policy for deciding what to keep, but the only published example I know of is that of the international genebanks of CGIAR, which can be find in the Guidance Note for CGIAR Genebanks on Improving Accession Management.
The note points out that maintaining accessions is expensive, and needs to be rationalized, but that…
…improved understanding of diversity now provides an opportunity to reconsider and improve the composition and curation of a collection, by identifying potentially similar or redundant accessions that could be removed and gaps in collections that could be filled to increase or better cover inherent diversity for the crops in question. This would result in germplasm collections that will better address the goal of the conservation and use of crop germplasm and the changing needs of the stakeholders, clients and users within a global system. Having alternative options for curation or retention for specific classes of accessions provides options for rationalization and increases the transparency of curation decisions for the providers and users of the germplasm.
So CGIAR genebanks use four classes of curation: Fully curated, Partially curated, Archived, and Historical. Each represents a somewhat lower level of management activity, and therefore investment of time and money. And what accessions might be candidates for moving, say, to archived status? That would mean they “are believed to be alive and are stored in the genebank under optimal conditions for long-term survival, but without monitoring or distribution, while a final decision is made on their future so that, depending on their longevity, they can still be brought back to the curated collection or donated to other collections.” According to the note, lower priority accessions that might be candidates for archiving include:
- Accessions that are considered genetically similar to other accessions.
- Accessions from the same collection site and timeframe that are genetically similar and not the result of dividing a mixed original sample into multiple distinct accessions.
- Accessions that are outside the collection’s mandate and are best managed by others.
- Accessions that, based on a justified process for prioritizing accessions for conservation, are not considered for long-term conservation as part of the crop genepool, for example, an accession may come from a part of the genepool that is considered to be over-represented in the collection relative to other parts of the genepool.
- Mixed accessions that are no longer true to the original or have identity problems from physical errors and contamination.
- Problematic accessions that are beyond the ability of the genebank to continue their maintenance.
- Accessions of unknown identity or origin and have no historical records.
So, not so much MUSTY, as, what, SCRAPPY maybe?
S – Similar to other accessions genetically
C – Co-collected (same site/time), genetically similar
R – Rogue (outside the mandate)
A – Abundant in over-represented parts of the genepool
P – Polluted (mixed, contaminated, or identity problems)
P – Problematic to maintain
Y – Yesteryear’s mystery (unknown identity/origin)
I hope it catches on.
Can your genebank go MUSTY?
A really interesting recent episode of the 99% Invisible podcast alerted me to the fact that libraries occasionally get rid of books, something they call “weeding.” Now, genebanks are often compared to libraries, so I was interested to learn about the criteria librarians use in deciding what to weed. It turns out one popular — though not necessarily easy to follow — set of rules goes under the totally appropriate acronym of MUSTY:
M – Misleading, inaccurate, out of date. Unless you’re an official depository for books containing scientific theories that have since been disproved, don’t feel guilty about discarding books about NASA from 1975.
U – Ugly. Books ought to be beautiful, if at all possible. Books that are attractive will appeal to readers.
S – Superseded. If a better book comes along, don’t feel obligated to keep a former edition or favorite unless you are sure it has lingering value.
T – Trivial. People know I like books, and with the best of intentions they sometimes give me volumes that I really have no use for. Remember their thoughtfulness, thank them sincerely, but find a better home for those books – you will all be better off.
Y – Your collection: This book is no longer appropriate for your current passion. If you are finished learning everything there is to know about raising orchids and have moved on to quilting, donate the orchid books to a local club who can use them before they grow misleading, inaccurate and out of date for anyone else. Consider whether you have read it already and intend to do so again; or, if you haven’t read it, will you? Really and honestly?
So if a genebank found itself having to “weed” its collection, would any of these tests help at all? How does the genebank-as-library metaphor stand up to stress-testing?
Not hugely well, it seems to me.
Start with M. It’s hard to see how to apply this to germplasm. An accession might have inaccurate data associated with it, but nobody would get rid of it for that reason. It might be out of date in the sense of running down in viability, but that’s a reason for regenerating it, not binning it.
As for U, I guess this could refer to an accession that has been evaluated for certain traits and found wanting. But you never know what will happen with the next trait you evaluate for. And standards of beauty change.
Can a genebank accession be S for superseded? 3 This might be trickier. Do you need to keep a really old batch of seeds after regeneration, say? But I don’t think you can really easily apply the concept at the accession level.
But maybe you can so apply T. Think of a plant originally collected as a potential forage that turns out not to be useful in that capacity at all. Does it still need to be part of a forage collection?
And that might also go for Y. Some genebanks do have themes: medicinals, forages, biosaline agriculture… If the mandate of the genebank changes, some stuff may need to find other homes.
MUSTY is not the only way that librarians use to guide their weeding. But to the extent that it is, it does not look like it translates to genebanks as easily as the prevalence of the metaphor might lead us to suppose.