Nibbles: EU meet, Green cities, Gates strategy, Indigenous hunger, Niche coffee, Salinity, Botany rules, Pollinator evidence, Sacred cows, Coke bottles

A couple of EU DGs discuss farming for diversity, maybe even diversity in farming?
They recently heard about urban farming from FAO, which might help. Oh no, wait, that’s a different DG.
Gates Foundation doubles down on nutrition, nice to see agriculture in the mix too.
Meanwhile, efforts are underway to measure the food security of indigenous people in better ways, so that we can figure out whether things like the above are actually working.
Sourcing high quality coffee. I think we can all get behind that goal.
Deconstructing salt tolerance in chickpea.
Botany has an image problem. No, really?
Fact-checking pollinator decline.
Only local cows for Haryana. Seems extreme? Well, Michigan not above doing the same.
Coca-Cola has plant-based bottles. Now to embed some seeds in them.
Maybe Swedish vegetable seeds. Do they have Coke in Sweden?

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.