Nibbles: Weeds, Poverty, Mycorrhizae, Gluten-free wheat, Vanilla, Different apples, Pashmina wool

Oh dear, someone else has fallen for the “weeds are better for you” line, cautious question-mark notwithstanding.
And guess what? The poor don’t buy nutritious foods. How silly of them.
Great post explaining the great unseen: mycorrhizal fungi as drivers of plant diversity.
Gluten-free wheat? Really (even if the links still don’t work).
What would you video on honeymoon in Mexico? A visit to a vanilla plantation. What else?
Conserving apples and earth apples at opposite ends of the world.
Oh, no, pashmina’s in trouble!

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.