Nibbles: Agave pollination, Sanjaya Rajaram, PGR policy history, Ex situ conifers, Botanic garden theft, Kyrgyz forests, Home nurseries, American chestnut, South Pacific action

Tequila and bats. Two of my favourite things.
Continuing the Mexican theme, we have a World Food Prize 2014 winner.
I wonder what he thinks of the changes he’s seen during his illustrious career in the international system for PGR conservation and use.
I bet there’s a few endangered conifers, and maybe some ex situ collections, in Mexico.
I hope there weren’t any among the plants stolen from the RBG Edinburgh recently.
But perhaps there were some fruits and nuts from Kyrgyzstan?
Well, the way to go is home nurseries, clearly.
Maybe even with the GM chestnut, why not?
Meanwhile, in the South Pacific, CePaCT has been really busy.

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.