Nibbles: SRI in Indonesia, SRI in Nepal, Diversity in GMO review, Climate change fears, Ancient grind in China

System of Rice Intensification increases yields, not incomes, because it takes time away from other jobs. Caveats apply.
Which does not deter Rajendra Uprety, an SRI activist, in Nepal, where rice farmers “hydridize technology”.
In reviewing the global march of GMOs, a plea for policies to promote “much more crop diversity”. Well of course we agree.
US food company executives fear “weather extremes” more than anything else in 2013.
The same fears may have driven Chinese people to food processing 23,000 years ago. A grind not being able to access the PNAS paper.

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.