- Seed collection and processing practices affect subsequent seed storage longevity in durum wheat and wild relatives. Immature seeds can still usefully be harvested for long-term storage of properly handled.
- Two-step drying of soya bean seed germplasm often improves subsequent storage longevity. “Proper handling” includes drying at higher temperatures.
- Seed-stored transcript integrity as a molecular indicator of viability in conserved common bean germplasm. mRNA degradation predicts loss of seed viability.
- Developing a cryopreservation protocol for the conservation of coconut palm (Cocos nucifera L.) using a novel type of explant, meristematic clumps. Who needs seeds anyway?
- Pollen cryobanking at the USDA-ARS National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation. Well, who needs meristematic clumps?
- Mapping pea seed composition through strategic selection of accessions from the Nordic gene bank. Image analysis can be used to maximise diversity in nutritional composition in pea seeds, thus facilitating use of genebank collections. Can’t do that with pollen, I suspect.
- A small-scale assessment of the availability of EURISCO accessions. Facilitating use needs all the help it can get.
- Strengthening national genebanks through genomics and regional collaboration: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean. I guess genomics capacity could help with use.
- Enhancing farmers’ access and use of conserved germplasm for improved food security and climate resilience: The case of sorghum at Kenya’s national genebank. Genomics unavailable for comment. Farmers, on the other hand….
- Linking the ICRISAT Genebank to Poverty Reduction and Welfare in Malawi. Facilitating use by farmers is important.
- Farmers as breeders and seed producers: Insights from 30 years of scaling up seed clubs in Vietnam. It’s super cool when farmers organize. Including for genebanks.
- Elephant ear yam Xanthosoma robustum Schott (Araceae), a neglected crop native to Central America. Needs more attention from genebanks. And farmers and their clubs for that matter.
- Plant genebank of Sudan: Towards recovery from the wreckage of war to a new era of further capacity development based on lessons learnt from similar situations. We must de-risk genebanks. Wouldn’t want to lose all those elephant ear yam collections we’ll be making.
Agro-tour de force
I’ve been very interested in the intersection between tourism and agrobiodiversity conservation ever since I was (admittedly tangentially) involved in the late, great Marleni Ramirez‘s Adventures in Agrobiodiversity — Ecotourism for Agrobiodiversity Conservation: A Feasibility Study almost a quarter of a century ago (sic). So it was great to come across the FAO technical brief Sustainable agritourism: an opportunity for agrifood systems transformation in the Mediterranean a few days ago.
Its premise is that the synergy between agrobiodiversity and sustainable agritourism creates a powerful feedback loop that safeguards both biological heritage and rural livelihoods. In this relationship, biodiversity acts as the primary “pull factor” for the traveller; the presence of cool indigenous crops, rare animal breeds, and attractive wild flora provides the authentic, immersive, site-specific experiences that many modern tourists crave. By integrating these unique biological assets into the tourism value chain — such as through the promotion of ancient grape varieties or the use of wild herbs in culinary workshops — farmers find a compelling economic justification for maintaining diverse ecosystems, and holding at bay the charms of modern monoculture.
At the same time, agritourism serves as a vital tool for the in situ conservation of agricultural biodiversity. By creating niche markets for non-standardized products, it incentivizes the cultivation of traditional crops and heirloom varieties and reduces the pressure on local farming practices and habitats. For example, in Mediterranean pescatourism (a new term to me) fishers pivot from high-impact commercial harvesting to low-impact tourism, drastically reducing net usage while increasing the perceived value of marine biodiversity. Ultimately, agritourism transforms the farm — and indeed the fishery — into a living laboratory for food systems literacy, educating society on the importance of “zero food-miles” and seasonal diversity, ensuring that the genetic wealth of the past remains a functional part of the agricultural future.
While the technical brief focuses primarily on dynamic, on farm conservation fuelled by tourism, with no mention of ex situ, it kinda implicitly points, if you squint, towards a complementary approach where agritourism acts as the visible, economic front-end for the genetic security provided by genebanks. For agritourism to thrive on the unique grape lineages in Crete or the traditional crops at Jordan’s Carob House, there must be a secure backup of these resources if things go wrong. Genebanks allow farmers to reintroduce forgotten varieties into their fields, which then become the star attractions for visitors seeking authentic Mediterranean flavours.
By weaving together these two strategies, a resilient conservation loop is formed: genebanks preserve raw diversity, while sustainable agritourism provides the “real-world” laboratory where it can evolve, adapt to changing climates, and generate income for rural communities. If agritourism is a lever for “agrifood systems transformation,” this transformation is most secure when the living heritage found on farm is backed by the scientific safety net of a genebank, ensuring that the biological assets underpinning the tourism experience are never truly lost to time.
A message that could also have been usefully trumpeted by the initiative called Tourism Food for Good, introduced late last year by UN Tourism, the TUI Care Foundation, and the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Resilience and Sustainable Development. The focus there seems to be mainly on reducing food loss and waste. Which is worthy enough, but seems to miss an obvious trick. Hopefully UN Tourism will talk to FAO soon. Or read Marleni’s still very relevant thoughts.
Brainfood: Diversity of Sugarcane, Rice, Lentils, Olives, Sweetpotato, Cassava, Beans, Buckwheat, Pigeon pea, Landscapes
- The genomic footprints of wild Saccharum species trace domestication, diversification, and modern breeding of sugarcane. The genome of modern sugarcane is a mosaic of wild introgressions, including one from an unknown source.
- Evolutionary histories of functional mutations during the domestication and spread of japonica rice in Asia. Selection by biotic stresses acted differently on standing variation in rice across geographic regions. Colour me surprised.
- Ancient DNA from lentils (Lens culinaris) illuminates human-plant-culture interactions in the Canary Islands. Local lentils trace back a thousand years in the Canaries.
- An olive parentage atlas: founder cultivars, regional diversification, and implications for breeding programs. Modern cultivars derive from a surprisingly small set of founding genotypes…
- Intraspecific variation and phenotypic plasticity of olive varieties in response to contrasting environmental conditions. …but cultivated olives maintain high within-species variation and plasticity, enabling adaptation across Mediterranean environments.
- Deciphering the Origins of Commercial Sweetpotato Genotypes Using International Genebank Data. One Brazilian sweetpotato traced back to a CIP accession with a different name, but others did not match anything in the genebank.
- Exploring genetic diversity and selective signatures, a journey through Colombian cassava’s landscape. Colombia’s farmers and environments have shaped its cassava diversity. No word on whether any of it traces back to the CIAT genebank.
- Novel germplasm of tepary and other Phaseolus bean wild relatives from dry areas of southwestern USA. The available genepool for bean breeding gets a welcome boost.
- Insight into root system architecture of buckwheat through genome-wide association mapping-first study. Want drought-resilient, high-yielding buckwheat varieties? Here are the genes — and genotypes — to play with. So the available genepool doesn’t need a boost?
- Non-destructive prediction of nitrogen, iron and zinc content in diverse common bean seeds from a genebank using near-infrared spectroscopy. High-throughput, non-destructive phenotyping methods capture nutritional trait variation across a bean core collection. Wild teparies unavailable for comment.
- Germplasm exploration and digital phenotyping reveal indigenous diversity and farmer preferences in pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.) for climate-smart breeding. Not all phenotyping can be high-throughput, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful, at least in pigeon peas.
- Agricultural landscape genomics to increase crop resilience. Could have been applied to all of the above, I guess.
Joining up the crop diversity impact dots a bit better
I think I was a bit too gnomic in the last Brainfood. What I was trying to do was arrange a bunch of recent papers on the pipeline from diverse farm landscapes to better health and nutrition outcomes. But I could have been more explicit about it, I agree. So here goes.
First, Global spatial co-variation between crop diversity and landscape heterogeneity shows that in areas with a moderate extent of cropland, landscape diversity is associated with crop diversity. Ok, fine, but so what? Well, next, The role of farm production diversity in enhancing dietary diversity and food security in Southern Bangladesh links that crop diversity — the diversity that farming families grow — with the diversity of the food that they eat: farms growing a wider range of crops tend to support more varied and nutrient-rich diets. Ok, but, again, so what? Hang in there, we’re almost there. The next paper, Linking species and functional crop diversity in South Asia: a spatial assessment of agrobiodiversity for nutrition-sensitive agriculture, sharpens up the focus by showing that what matters nutritionally is not just more crops, but crops that differ in traits, nutrients and uses. And finally, the pièce de résistance, Food biodiversity and its association with diet quality and health outcomes – A scoping review, connects the dots at the consumption end, associating higher food biodiversity with improved micronutrient adequacy and a better overall diet. So the arc is: conserving and deploying species diversity in fields and landscapes is not merely an ecological virtue, but a nutritional strategy, one that translates more diverse seeds in the soil to more nutrients on plates to fewer people in hospitals.
Better now?
Latest from the Treaty
Ok, sure, maybe the Plant Treaty needs “enhancement,” and the results of its recent Governing Body meeting may have been a tad disappointing. But its achievements are undeniable, and very well documented in a just-out comprehensive analysis of the Multilateral System it has set up.