Nibbles: Cryo genebanks, In situ network, Biodiversity fund, Swiss grape, Coffee history, Wild plant use, Plant breeding impact

Panel discussion on cryopreservation in genebanks on 25 June, save the date!
Forget cryo, what about a network of European network for the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources, in cultivation and in the wild? See who is interested. And express interest yourself.
Germans launch Legacy Landscape Fund for biodiversity hotspots. European in situ PGR conservation network unavailable for comment. Let alone cryo genebanks.
I wonder if that European on-farm conservation network will include the Completer grape, ideally in a monastery.
Decolonizing coffee. Somebody want to write about religion and crops?
Using wild plants in south and southeast Asia. Maybe they need a network too.
Plant breeders say plant breeding is really important.

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.