Farmers’ Rights webinar coming up fast

I realize another webinar is probably the last thing you want to know about right now. I see you, I really do. But this is these are important, and it’s a great lineup.

“Farmers’ Rights in the International Legal Architecture for Food and Agriculture Article 9, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) recognizes the enormous contribution that the local and indigenous communities and farmers of all regions of the world, particularly those in the centers of origin and crop diversity, have made and will continue to make to the conservation and development of plant genetic resources which constitute the basis of food and agriculture production throughout the world. This webinar will examine the links between Farmers’ Rights (as established in the ITPGRFA) and related international treaties alongside the right to food and gender perspectives on Farmers’ Rights.”

Date: 16 September 2020. Time: 3.00 pm to 5.00 pm (Rome).

Moderator: Ms Titilayo Adebola (School of Law, University of Aberdeen)

Panelists

  • Ms Regine Andersen: Research Director for Biodiversity and Natural Resources, Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI), Norway
  • Mr Michael Fakhri: The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
  • Ms Susannah Chapman: Research Fellow, the University of Queensland
  • Ms Yolanda Huerta: Legal Counsel, International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants
  • Ms Isabel Lopez Noriega: Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture
  • Mr James Gathii: Wing Tat-Lee Chair of International Law and Professor of Law, Loyola University of Chicago.

Register here for the first one.

And here for the second one on the 17th.

Brainfood: CGIAR, Genebank data, AI & diseases, Mentha CWR, Tree crops, Carrot diversity, Rice sampling, Perennial rice, Rice de-domestication, Malagasy deforestation, Saving pollinators, Sheep domestication, FFS, Wine signatures

The latest biodiversity mega-papers, tweeted

Always great when someone summarizes three major biodiversity publications for you in one tweet.

Just in case something happens to that tweet, here’s the text:

Big hitters in conservation today, in a nutshell:

Biodiversity has declined globally for decades https://livingplanet.panda.org/en-gb/

but we’ve prevented some extinctions https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12762

and could reverse loss by 2050 https://nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2705-y

And thanks to Joe Bull for saving me a lot of work.

Oh, and here’s a further spoiler from Twitter for the last paper on the list.

Welcome to the world, Kurt

What can you do about inbreeding in a small population of a species that nearly went extinct? Well, if the species is Przewalski’s horse, one thing you can do is inject some new diversity into the genepool by cloning a genetically very distinct stallion whose cells you happened to put in liquid nitrogen forty years ago. The whole amazing story is on the website of the Revive & Restore project.

The new foal’s name is Kurt. Why?

Kurt is named in honor of Dr. Kurt Benirshke, a geneticist at the San Diego Zoo who in 1975 had a prescient idea. Dr. Benirshke began what is now the Frozen Zoo, collecting and cryopreserving the cell lines of endangered species and safely storing away genetic diversity before it was lost. At the time the collection was a bet on cloning and reproductive technologies that did not yet exist. Nearly fifty years later, with the partnership of San Diego Zoo Global Frozen Zoo, Revive & Restore, and ViaGen Pets and Equine, Dr. Benirschke’s plans are quite literally coming to life.

h/t Beth Shapiro.

LATER: A bit more background on Przewalski’s horse just out.

Genesys learns taxonomy

Eh? Yep, you heard me.

With the recent adoption of the taxonomic backbone provided by GRIN Taxonomy, a search of Genesys for Solanum lycopersicum, which is the currently accepted name for the tomato in GRIN Taxonomy, will also return accessions documented as Lycopersicon esculentum, and indeed other synonyms.

Read all about it on the Genesys news page. And test it out.

Whether you like how it works, or not, leave comments below. I promise I’ll pass them on to the people in charge.