News

Read our Winter 2022 Newsletter to learn about recent activities of the project and its many researchers.To subscribe to our newsletter, email us at hps-cultivation@lists.cam.ac.uk

In summer 2022, the Imagining Futures network selected the project Living Biocultural Archives: “Collective Archivism” as one of its commissioned projects. This is exciting news for the work of Collection to Cultivation, as this ambitious community archiving initiative is part of the work of Cambridge HPS doctoral student and Collection to Cultivat…

The Rise and Fall of Processed Tomato in TaiwanThe sixth instalment in our project blog, where From Collection to Cultivation members share research insights, snippets, and ideas.When mentioning my research on the tomato breeding program of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC, today known as the World Vegetable Center), a usu…

The October 2022 issue of leading environmental history journal Global Environmentfeatures an article by Collection to Cultivation postdoc Ryan Nehring and his colleagues Cassandio Brito Rocha and Sandro Dutra e Silvo, 'Soy Without Borders: The Transnational Dynamics of Commodity Frontiers In South America (1971–2019)'.Together these experts explor…

Read our Summer 2022 Project Update from our Newsletter, archived here: Summer Newsletter, 2022.To subscribe to our newsletter, email us at hps-cultivation@lists.cam.ac.uk

Notes from the Field: Brazilian PANCsThe fifth instalment in our project blog, where From Collection to Cultivation members share research insights, snippets, and ideas.The image of Brazilian agriculture across the globe is polarising. For some, vast fields of technologically-advanced monoculture are the archetype of productive efficiency in the tr…

Sovereignty and the Food Systems Summit by Hitesh PantThe fourth instalment in our project blog, where From Collection to Cultivation members share research insights, snippets, and ideas.On 23 September 2021, the United Nations Food Systems Summit was inaugurated during the UN General Assembly as a significant historical event for the future of the…

Heritage Seeds and Settler Legacies by Helen Anne CurryThe third instalment in our project blog, where From Collection to Cultivation members share research insights, snippets, and ideas.I first encountered Mandan seeds as I pieced together the history of some corn samples placed in the care of the US Department of Agriculture in the 1950s. Seeds o…

Desvenar: Reimagining Fieldwork by Daniela SclavoThe second instalment in our project blog, where From Collection to Cultivation members share research insights, snippets, and ideas.Inés instructed me to wash and desvenar the guajillo chiles for the next day’s mole. The literal translation of desvenar is to devein, stripping out the veins and seeds…

Paying Attention to Aphids by João P. R. JoaquimThe first instalment in our project blog, where From Collection to Cultivation members share research insights, snippets, and ideas.Most histories where insects have a significant role gravitate towards those critters that people either love or hate. But what about one that is often ignored—the aphid?…

Read our Winter 2021 Project Update from our Newsletter, archived here: Winter Newsletter, 2022.To subscribe to our newsletter, email us at hps-cultivation@lists.cam.ac.uk

At the end of September, some of our team had the pleasure of visiting the Brogdale Collections—home of the National Fruit Collections, the living gene bank for UK fruit crop diversity. As our first group research visit since the project's launch, it also presented an opportunity for our team to meet in person after a year of Covid-related delays a…

From Collection to Cultivation PI Helen Anne Curry and University of Exeter colleague Sabina Leonelli will be presenting a panel entitled "Plant data science between policy and technology" at this year's ISHPSSB Biennial Meeting 2021. Full details on the panel and the conference can be found here: https://datastudies.eu/events/56-ishpssb-panel-plan…

Read our Spring 2021 Project Update from our Newsletter, archived here: Spring Newsletter, 2021.To subscribe to our newsletter, email us at hps-cultivation@lists.cam.ac.uk

'From Collection to Cultivation: Historical Perspectives on Crop Diversity and Food Security'The Department of History and Philosophy of Science (HPS), University of Cambridge, invites applications for a three-year doctoral studentship to start in October 2021. We seek outstanding candidates whose research will explore the history of 20th and 21st …