Nibbles: Rio, Livestock & crops, Rice restored, Asparagus trials, Pigeonpea DNA, Tomato taste, Liquorice, Palm pest

The UK is fully on board for Rio+20 to “prioritize sustainable agriculture”.
Maybe they saw ILRI’s number on mixed crops and livestock?
The Japanese say that restoring the surrounding ecosystem is what restored rice production after last year’s tsunami. So they will support the UK?
Amateur trials genebank’s asparagus varieties. I got a great bean that way.
AoBblog catches up with the pigeonpea priority problem.
“‘We now know exactly what we need to do to fix the broken tomato,’ said Harry Klee of the University of Florida.” You couldn’t make this science knows how stuff up.
A new use for liquorice: treating type 2 diabetes.
Something is eating the palms of Antigua, including the coconut palms. I’m no expert, but the symptoms look a lot like the work of the red palm weevil, our Roman palm disaster.

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.