Nibbles: Conferences, Banana satire, Green rice, Fairchild, Slippery cabbage

Advance notice of the IAALD 13th World Congress in Montpellier, France. Sounds like a blast.
Likewise for the Society for Economic Botany’s annual bash.
“Rabid banana consumption in the last 100 years has led to a precipitous increase in natural disasters.” Satire.
I’ve heard of green wheat to eat, but never green rice.
Protecting tropical trees from frost at a Florida botanic garden.
“Collecting germplasm is the first step in helping a nutritious island vegetable set seed.” Indeed it is.

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.