Nibbles: Rio+20, Food security, Old seedsmen, New products, Camels, Informatics, Malthus lecture

It’s so exciting: Rio+20 is almost upon us. Here’s the CGIAR’s Call to Action. Maybe they could fix the splits too?
CIAT hopes to have some useful answers on food security and ecosystem services, in four years.
At Chelsea, maybe the sun will shine on seedsmen of old?
How they make flour from diverse agricultural products in Ethiopia video.
They’re commercializing camels there too.
Obituaries for bioinformatics tools. Stop sniggering in the back.
Third annual Malthus lecture starts in just a few hours. In Washington DC.

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.