Nibbles: Adam Forbes, Squash, Native Americans, Gardens, Buffalo, Pastoralism, Primula, IPR

Global seed searcher Adam Forbes check in.
Filipinos greet new squashes.
Smithsonian special feature on the American Indian. Not much agrobiodiversity, but still.
Reviews of a couple of interesting gardening books.
Asian Buffalo Congress 2009.
Policies that work for pastoral environments.
“Farmers are being encouraged to graze fewer, rarer animals, and that means the fields can sustain traditional wild flowers. It is a sweet-smelling plant and cattle and sheep love to eat it.” It is the cowslip.
Case studies on intellectual property in agriculture and forestry.

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.