Nibbles: Genomes, Sorghum squared, Tropical forests, UG99, Vanilla, Himalayan agriculture

And today’s 500 genomes are … h/t OpenHelix.
FAO uses sorghum to deliver food security in Matabeleland North.
Meanwhile … science alert: sorghum’s family tree delineated, scope for breeding from wild relatives.
Small family farms can provide lots of food and preserve tropical forest biodiversity, say researchers. Actual paper not yet available.
Wired magazine does UG99 wheat rust. Read it and weep.
And in other fungus news, Fusarium hits vanilla in Kerala.
“Ladakh’s youth … are increasingly switching from backbreaking agriculture in the harsh terrain to more profitable jobs in the booming tourism industry.” Twas ever thus.

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.