Nibbles: Youthful ideas, IK, Variety testing, GMO philosophy, Organic GMOs, Oline disease, Cacao doctors, US wheat, Cary Fowler, Bison renaissance, UCDavis, Andean grains, Alaskan ag, Lettuce latex, Collecting strategies, Pulses racing, Huitlacoche, Ecoagriculture, Bowel movement

Australian yoofs make suggestions for a better agriculture. Not as bad as you might think.
Emulate, don’t imitate, desert dwellers.
Webinar on variety trialing.
A philosopher tackles GMO labelling. Not many people hurt.
Meanwhile, Pamela Ronald is trying to find a middle way.
This Italian olive disease thing is getting worrying.
Indonesians have their own problems with cacao, but at least they seem to be fixing them.
And the US is gonna have trouble with wheat. The solution: plant maize? No, wait…
The European bison is back!
A decade of Plant Sciences at UCDavis.
Call for more breeding of Andean grains. By an Andean grain breeder.
“It might not be the Fertile Crescent when it comes to corn and potatoes, but south-central Alaska just might be the cradle of the coming Rhodiola renaissance.”
Rubbery lettuce? Shhh, or everybody will want some.
Can’t collect seed at random throughtout a population? Collect more!
Yeah, yeah, it’s the International Year of Pulses, we get it.
The Mexican truffle?
Ecofarming pays. In Kenya. In 2014.
Sometimes crop wild relatives are a real pain in the ass.

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.