Nibbles: Domesticating fruit trees, Plains Indians, Weedy rice, Prize, Maize festivals, Ifugao, Bangladeshi diets, Pacific hopes, Plant patents

Domesticating fruit trees for food and profit. But why the “scare quotes” around clone?
Indians 101: Northern Plains Agriculture.
A different kind of weedy wild relative; feral rice.
Great, innovative agricultural scientist? Prizes await you.
Mexico’s corn festivals celebrate diversity – but why bring opposition to GMOs into it?
Project to help the people who created and manage the Ifugao rice terraces to cope with climate change. Stay tuned.
Project to “diversify … diets to improve nutrition and incomes in Bangladesh”. Stay tuned.
And countries of the Pacific look to crop diversity to manage climate variability. Stay tuned.
Can a farmer commit patent infringement just by planting soybeans he bought on the open market? Good question; stay tuned.

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.