Nibbles: Phylloxera, Nitrogen fixation, Famine, Biofortification, Heritage

What more do you need to know about Phylloxera?
A dangerous fixation? Not us. Slate does nitrogen.
What do zombies eat when they run out of brains, and other responses to famine.
India’s government does the needful and embraces biofortified staples. Wish them luck.
“Let’s turn the clock back 4,000 years.” Good idea. Now we have the time to read Agricultural heritage across the millennia.

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.