Nibbles: Indigenous knowledge, Buffalo, Wheat rust, Cassava, New Green Revolution, Environmentalism, Millennium Seedbank, USDA, Pig

India’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library a bulwark against piracy. Ahoy me mateys!
Oh give me a home, where the buffalo-cow hybrid roamed.
“We’ve found one of the most important disease resistance genes in wheat.”
Cassava on its way to being a complete meal. Oh joy.
Usual suspects debate GM.
The history of the American wilderness movement deconstructed.
Australia’s Northern Territory needs more collectors.
“USDA People’s Garden announced today will eliminate 1,250 square feet of unnecessary paved surface at the USDA headquarters and return the landscape to grass.” Michelle likes it.
Pig domestication, for Vavilov and now.

A paean to diverse diets is just what we all need.
And another one, from the MIT Technology Review of all places.
Menawhile, there’s only one reference to dietary diversity in the World Bank’s investment framework for nutrition.
Maybe you have to quantify that diversity before you can save it? Now where have I heard that before?
Meanwhile, Europe reports on biodiversity-friendly farming practices. Does that include the biodiversity of the actual crops? Perhaps surprisingly, yes!
You want biodiversity-friendly farming practices? Talk to Indigenous people. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has launched an e-consultation on “Preserving, strengthening and promoting Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems and traditional practices for sustainable food systems.”
There’s diversity in asparagus too.
Genebanks can help with those biodiversity-friendly practices, diverse diets and rops and Indigenous practices.
Even big international genebanks.
Even the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
But some are in trouble.
Though others are coming back.