• 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?

At the International Congress of Genetics in New Delhi in 1983, I stressed the need for a conservation continuum, beginning with revitalizing conservation of domesticated plants by farm families in all countries, and extending to the establishment of an international genetic resource repository maintained under permafrost conditions. Since then, thanks to the spread of participatory breeding and knowledge-management systems involving scientists and local communities, on-farm conservation and gene banks have become integral parts of national biodiversity conservation strategies. For example, there are now over 125,000 genetic strains of rice, of which over 100,000 are in a cryogenic gene bank maintained by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines. This gene pool is invaluable for adapting one of the world’s most important cereal grains to the consequences of global climate change.

Si monumentum requiris circumspice.

Here’s Tom Barse, a Maryland farmer and brewer:

We used to sell hops to local breweries until we opened Milkhouse Brewery at Stillpoint Farm, in 2013, where we now use all of the hops we grow. A few years back, at an agricultural conference at Linganore Wine Cellars, I met Dr. Ray Ediger, a retired veterinarian living in Utica in Frederick County. He told me about an old hop plant growing on his farm that had been there for years, and wanted to know if I was interested in checking it out.

Tom continues, “I went out to Ray’s farm and was amazed to see this enormous hop plant that had taken over his chicken coop, fence, and other farm buildings. Fellow hop growers Brad Humbert, Del Hayes, and I went out and picked some of the hops in early October – which is extremely late for a harvest in Maryland.

…

We thought we had something pretty cool, so working with Janna Howley and Kevin Atticks at Grow and Fortify we were able to get a USDA/MDA grant to research the hop and make beer. We donated the germplasm to the USDA plant bank and have received a USDA PI number (plant introduction).

That PI number is 700807, and you can see it right there on the beer bottles.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a genebank accession number quoted on a commercial product like that. Thanks to Dr Peter Bretting of USDA for the headsup.

LATER: Oh yes I have :)

1. China announces a slew of seed-related measures.
2. A slew of seeds kept apples diverse in the US South, but not so much any more.
3. Fortunately there’s a slew of apples, among many other things, in the USDA genebank system.
4. Dates too, probably, but this article is actually about the (complementary?) collection at Arizona State University.
5. A slew of intellectual protections has been good for seed companies. But consumers?
6. IFG no doubts benefits mightily from intellectual property protection of its grape varieties. The diversity of which you can peruse on this nice website.
7. Speaking of nice websites, this one helps farmers pick-a-mix of crops. Intercropping is diversity too.
8. How the coffee industry is trying to cope with a slew of sustainability rules. Yeah, sometimes IP protection is not enough.
9. But who owns heritage varieties?
10. Including heritage varieties of Belgian malting barley and other cereals.
11. Speaking of malting, they use sorghum in Tanzania.
12. It’s unclear what heritage varieties went into making horse-bread, but I’d like to taste the stuff.
13. But who needs bread (or beer?) anyway? There’s a slew of root and tuber crops in Africa and elsewhere just waiting to solve hunger…
14. …as Guyana knows well.
15. Wanna keep track of (most of) the above? FAO has you (sorta) covered via a slew of indicators.

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?

• Biodiversity: Concepts, Patterns, Trends, and Perspectives. It may not be the sixth mass extinction, but it’s still bad, and we’re to blame. Interestingly for such a high-level review, genetic diversity of domesticated species is actually mentioned.
• Seeds of knowledge: paving the way to integrated historical and conservation science research. Conserving the genetic diversity of domesticated species needs to combine history and science.
• Maize and precolonial Africa. Maize contributed to slavery. History indeed.
• Agriculture in the Ancient Maya Lowlands (Part 1): Paleoethnobotanical Residues and New Perspectives on Plant Management. There was more diversity than formerly thought, at various levels. So not just history, but archaeology as well?
• Current agricultural diversification strategies are already agroecological. Ancient Maya Lowland agriculture sounds very agroecological.
• Earliest curry in Southeast Asia and the global spice trade 2000 years ago. Yes, definitely archaeology is needed too.
• Co-conserving Indigenous and local knowledge systems with seeds. Conserving the genetic diversity of domesticated species needs to combine traditional knowledge and seeds.
• Culture and agricultural biodiversity conservation. Conserving the genetic diversity of domesticated species needs to combine culture and policy.
• What plant breeding may (and may not) look like in 2050? Using the genetic diversity of domesticated species needs to increase selection intensity. Citizen science to the rescue?
• Conventional breeding of Pacific Island staple crops: A paradox. Using the genetic diversity of domesticated species needs to increase in the Pacific. And fast.
• Unlocking the inherent potential of plant genetic resources: food security and climate adaptation strategy in Fiji and the Pacific. Maybe selection intensity is not the thing in the Pacific.
• What Can Be Learned by a Synoptic Review of Plant Disease Epidemics and Outbreaks Published in 2021? Using the genetic diversity of domesticated species needs to increase. Very fast.
• Apulian Autochthonous Olive Germplasm: A Promising Resource to Restore Cultivation in Xylella fastidiosa-Infected Areas. Using the genetic diversity of domesticated species is increasing.

1. Why heirloom seeds matter.
2. Why genebanks full of heirloom seeds matter. Even to kids.
3. Just how much agrobiodiversity matters, according to FAO.
4. Why heirloom seeds of neglected crops matter.
5. Why heirloom seeds of sorghum matter in Kenya.
6. Why heirloom grapes matter in Italy.
7. Why seeds of wild tomatoes matter.
8. Even wild sheep matter.
9. Why visualizing coffee diversity matters.
10. Why watermelons mattered in the 17th century.
11. Why bottle gourds mattered to Koreans.

• Comparing delivery channels to promote nutrition-sensitive agriculture: A cluster-randomized controlled trial in Bangladesh. When it comes to delivering nutrition info jointly to husbands and wives, female nutrition workers and male extension workers are about equally good. But mothers-in-law don’t help in either case.
• Levelling foods for priority micronutrient value can provide more meaningful environmental footprint comparisons. From a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the environmental impact of different foods to a nutritional Life Cycle Assessment (nLCA). Maybe mothers-in-law should calculate it.
• Policy-induced expansion of organic farmland: implications for food prices and welfare. Raising the organic cropland share in rich countries from 3-15% increases food prices in poor countries by about 2% on average for 4 major grains and oilseeds. No word on what the LCA and nLCA looks like.
• Cheese consumption and multiple health outcomes: an umbrella review and updated meta-analysis of prospective studies. Cheese is moderately good for you. I wonder which micronutrients are involved.
• Ownership of small livestock species, but not aggregate livestock, is associated with an increased risk of anemia among children in Ethiopia: A propensity score matching analysis. Poultry was associated with lower anemia risk, sheep and goats with higher risk. No word on whether cheese was involved.
• Women’s empowerment, production choices, and crop diversity in Burkina Faso, India, Malawi, and Tanzania: a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data. Women on more diverse farms had more power. No word on how many of them were mothers-in-law.
• The Role of Home Gardens in Promoting Biodiversity and Food Security. Mothers-in-law and homegardens would be one hell of a study.
• The ultra-processed food industry in Africa. It should be treated like the tobacco or alcohol industry. Maybe put mothers-in-law in charge of regulating it?
• Exploring genetic variability, heritability, and trait correlations in gari and eba quality from diverse cassava varieties in Nigeria. Just a reminder that there may be genetic diversity in all the above nutritional type stuff. Which the ultra-processed food industry is probably ignoring, but mothers-in-law are not.

Our friends at World Agroforestry (the centre formerly known as ICRAF) have been very busy with their data wrangling in support of policy recommendations. So much so, in fact, that it may be getting complicated to keep all their information products straight, so here’s a quick recap.

Let’s start with the premise that we need more trees. I don’t think anyone disputes that. The problem, as has been repeated many times now, is to have the right trees in the right places. That starts with the right seeds, of course. In a recent paper, World Agroforestry scientists and partners suggest that what we need for that is more transparency about where those seeds will be coming from.

But which species should be sourced? That’s where GlobalUsefulNativeTrees comes in. As described in another recent paper, this has data on “14,014 tree species that can be filtered for ten major use categories, across 242 countries and territories.” So if you want to know what trees can be used as animal food in tropical montane Kenya, say, this will tell you. The answer is Prunus africana, by the way.

Ah, but you may be worried about how the trees you have selected to plant (or indeed have already been planted) will do under climate change. Fear not, World Forestry again has you covered with TreeGOER. That has data on the climatic preferences of 48,129 tree species, and likely vulnerability as the climate changes. The results may well send you back to GlobalUsefulNativeTrees for a rethink.

Hope that clarifies the landscape a bit. Looking forward to other use cases from readers.

• Diversifying agrifood systems to ensure global food security following the Russia–Ukraine crisis. Diversify markets, production, crops and technology to de-risk agrifood systems.
• Genebanks at Risk: Hazard Assessment and Risk Management of National and International Genebanks. De-risk genebanks first though.
• Climate-Smart Agriculture in African Countries: A Review of Strategies and Impacts on Smallholder Farmers. Could have made more of the need for diversity, but improved varieties at least are in there.
• Adoption and impact of improved amaranth cultivars in Tanzania using DNA fingerprinting. Yeah, even improved varieties of traditional local veggies, why not.
• GlobalUsefulNativeTrees, a database documenting 14,014 tree species, supports synergies between biodiversity recovery and local livelihoods in landscape restoration. But don’t forget trees.
• Efforts of researchers and other stakeholders to manage an unfolding epidemic: Lessons from potato purple top in Ecuador. Resilience is hard.
• Seed Systems Resilience—An Overview. Continuous flow of diversity, trustworthy institutions and innovation are needed to de-risk seed systems. would certainly have helped with the above.
• Navigating toward resilient and inclusive seed systems. Or…: do no harm, think diversity and adopt a seed security perspective. Good to see diversity as the common thread in this discourse.
• Seed systems development to navigate multiple expectations in Ethiopia, Malawi and Tanzania. The above put into practice.
• Community seed banks: Instruments for food security or unsustainable endeavour? A case study of Mkombezi Community Seed Bank in Malawi. Yes, indeed, community seedbanks can contribute to seed systems resilience and food security.
• Maize varietal replacement in Eastern and Southern Africa: Bottlenecks, drivers and strategies for improvement. Seed companies need to be more proactive…
• Why farmers use so many different maize varieties in West Kenya? …but remember about doing no harm. And we’re back to diversity I see.

1. The hidden history of ugali in Kenya. Unnecessary spoiler alert: colonialism is involved.
2. An app for taxonomic identification. Unnecessary spoiler alert: AI is involved.
3. The not-so-hidden history of the North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station at Ames, Iowa.
4. Let them eat grass. No, man, species of the Poaceae. Possibly unnecessary spoiler alert: New Zealand is taking the lead.
5. The silver lining of Californian storm clouds. Spoiler alert: seeds.

Good — and not very surprising — to see our friend Prof. Jess Fanzo recommend that “the U.S. should consider targeting additional research funding toward,” among other things, “crop diversity and nutrition.”

Low productivity, high production risks, and insufficient diversification towards producing more nutritious foods are critical drivers of the elevated cost of healthy diets, especially in low-income countries. More research should focus on developing sustainable and scalable production methods for various crops, including fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, improved forages for climate-smart animal nutrition, and where appropriate, biofortification and fortification of crops and food. In addition, more research is needed to improve the affordability of animal-source foods, such as fish, eggs, and dairy, that would enhance both nutrition and livelihoods.

Though actually probably most of the other five priority research areas she comes up with could also have had “crop diversity” added to the title. For the record, the full list is:

1. Climate change adaptation and mitigation
2. Soil health and nutrient management
3. Crop diversity and nutrition
4. Access to markets and finance, especially for women
5. Supply chain infrastructure
6. Local capacity building

It’s all in Jess’s report for the Farm Journal Foundation, entitled Building Stronger Food Systems in the Face of Global Shocks, which she summarizes on her must-read blog.

I learnt about it on Jeremy’s latest newsletter, which is also a must-read, natch.

1. Spanish-language article about the effort to save Ukraine’s genebank.
2. Report on “Reducing inequalities for food security and nutrition” from the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). They don’t say so explicitly, but genebanks can help with that.
3. They can certainly help with breeding new olive varieties, which are much needed.
4. Genebanks come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes an apple orchard is also a genebank.
5. Sometimes farmers are genebanks.
6. I wonder how many genebanks are there conserving trees with edible leaves.
7. The Australian Grains Genebank (AGG) gets a boost. No word on whether it will start conserving edible trees.

• New evidence of plant food processing in Italy before 40ka. Did modern humans outcompete Neanderthals in Italy by grinding up and eating wild cereals? No, probably not, but still.
• Early Dalmatian farmers specialized in sheep husbandry. Did early Dalmatian farmers outcompete local hunter gatherers by eating sheep? No, probably not, but still.
• Northwest African Neolithic initiated by migrants from Iberia and Levant. Iberians brought farming to the Maghreb, where local hunter-gatherers were both outcompeted and enticed to change their lifestyles, and the whole thing happened again later when pastoralism arrived from the Levant.
• Genetic continuity, isolation, and gene flow in Stone Age Central and Eastern Europe. This outcompeting thing happened to different extents in different parts of Europe.
• Why did foraging, horticulture and pastoralism persist after the Neolithic transition? The oasis theory of agricultural intensification. Lower rainfall and lower biodiversity allowed early intensive agriculture around the world to outcompete other lifestyles.
• New research on crop diversity of the early farmers in southeastern Europe (ca. 6400-5700 BCE). Some crops were outcompeted by others as agriculture spread into Europe.
• The early adoption of East Asian crops in West Asia: rice and broomcorn millet in northern Iran. Starting in East Asia, broomcorn millet reached the Caspian Sea’s southern coast by 2050 BC by infiltrating and rice by 120 BC by leapfrogging. No word on what they outcompeted.
• Redefining the timing and circumstances of the chicken’s introduction to Europe and north-west Africa. It took a long time for chickens to outcompete other sources of food. For a long time they were just exotic pets.
• Pre-Columbian legacy and modern land use in the Bolivian Amazon. Modern farming practices are taking advantage of ancient farming practices in the Llanos de Moxos. Unclear who is outcompeting whom.

1. Short, slightly random piece on the CATIE genebank.
2. Equally short and equally random piece on genebanks in general, leading with CATIE, closing with Svalbard. I suppose one shouldn’t be looking at a gift horse in the mouth.
3. A Ugandan field genebank is suffering from thefts. Maybe we shouldn’t call them banks.
4. Jamaica wants a coconut genebank. Hope it has a strong fence.

Sad to report that two giants of our field have passed on.

Dr Melaku Worede helped establish the national genebank of Ethiopia in 1976 and led it for 14 years. He was a champion for the equal participation of farmers and local communities in the conservation and management of crop diversity.

Dr Miguel Holle was a teacher and plant explorer, a world expert on wild tomato genetic resources.

Both made indelible contributions to the conservation and use of plant genetic resources, on both the technical and policy side, over many years. They will be missed.

1. Multiple simultaneous crop failures are going to get more common.
2. All the more reason to transform food system, right?
3. Which means funding genebanks properly, even on Malta.
4. And saving what can still be saved. Like fruit trees in the US, yes, why not?
5. But you have to know what to do with all that stuff in genebanks. Nigeria is showing a way to do that.
6. One thing you can do is breed beans which take less time to cook. Win-win.
7. While doing all that, let’s not forget peasants’ rights.

• Finance for food systems transformation. “Financial institutions with significant portfolio exposure to the agrifood sector” need to step up.
• Heavy reliance on private finance alone will not deliver conservation goals. We can’t trust financial institutions with significant portfolio exposure to the agrifood sector.
• Current conservation policies risk accelerating biodiversity loss. Spare the land for biodiversity, don’t share it. Financial institutions with significant portfolio exposure to the agrifood sector would probably agree. But that’s ok.
• Scientific evidence showing the impacts of nature restoration actions on food productivity. Land sharing isn’t all that bad actually.
• Biodiversity and pollination benefits trade off against profit in an intensive farming system. Land sharing needs financial incentives. Here we go again.
• Ecological intensification of agriculture through biodiversity management: introduction. Yeah but that’s only one example. Check out these 5 reviews and then let’s talk about financial incentives.
• The Meta-universe Platform Roblox for the Conservation of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS): The Case of the Floating Garden Agricultural Practices. Can they charge for it though?
• Risks of synchronized low yields are underestimated in climate and crop model projections. Meanwhile, the world burns…

1. You want agroecology? Don’t neglect labour issues.
2. You can’t neglect hot dry winds if you want the breed wheat for Kansas these days.
3. IFPRI continues to ride the neglected crops bandwagon, this time in Latin America.
4. In Africa, beer may rescue fonio from neglect.
5. Rescuing plants from herbarium sheets.
6. Rescuing herbarium sheets in Ukraine.
7. Breeding a safe grasspea will definitely save it from neglect.
8. Meanwhile, in Rome, negotiations to enhance the Plant Treaty’s multilateral system of access and benefit sharing re-start. I bet a whole bunch of neglected crops are on the agenda.

• Prioritizing Colombian plant genetic resources for investment in research using indicators about the geographic origin, vulnerability status, economic benefits, and food security importance. Out of 345 species, 25 were high priority, including 15 potatoes, 3 tomatoes, 2 tree tomatoes, pineapple, cocoa, papaya, yacon and coffee.
• Quantifying Endangerment Value: a Promising Tool to Support Curation Decisions. Looks a bit like an extreme form of “vulnerability status” above.
• GGoutlieR: an R package to identify and visualize unusual geo-genetic patterns of biological samples. Looks a bit like a fancy version of “geographic origin” above.
• Phenotypic and genotypic resources for the USDA quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) genebank accessions. The geo-genetic pattern was not particularly unusual, but still useful.
• Trans situ conservation strategies to conserve the extinction risk species, Sesamum prostratum Retz., a crop wild relative of sesame being endemic to coastal strand habitat: a case study. Ticks all the prioritization boxes I guess.
• Safeguarding plant genetic resources in the United States during global climate change. We should probably apply vulnerability assessments to stuff already in genebanks too.
• Limited genetic changes observed during in situ and ex situ conservation in Nordic populations of red clover (Trifolium pratense). Though if conservation is done right the stuff in genebanks should be fine.
• Collection and characterization of cassava germplasm in Comoros. Turned out to be a high priority for collecting.
• Fifty years of collecting wild Helianthus species for cultivated sunflower improvement. Good thing all this stuff was prioritized 50 years ago.
• The opportunity of using durum wheat landraces to tolerate drought stress: screening morpho-physiological components. 3 out of 8 Tunisian landraces tested are drought-tolerant. Prioritize for use?
• Tools for using the International Rice Genebank to breed for climate-resilient varieties. How to prioritize for use among 130,000 accessions rather than 8. No word on unusual geo-genetic patterns.
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