Nibbles: Seed morgues, African foods, GenRes, Agroecology, FarmGeek, ICRISAT

In Praise of Seed Morgues. You heard me. Webinar next week: sounds like a doozy.
Plan of Action on Forgotten Foods. Another webinar next week.
Walk into the Gateway. The GenRes Gateway, that is, “a crowd-sourced platform to guide you through the landscape of forest, plant and animal genetic resources in Europe.” A third webinar. Looks like I’ll be busy next week.
Maybe I’ll read about how to evaluate agroecology in the meantime.
Agroecology is not on FarmGeek, but other interventions are, like GMOs and “genetic diversity” (ie cultivar mixtures) and you can explore how effective they are around the world.
Speaking of genetic diversity, there’s a lot of it in ICRISAT’s pearl millet fields at the moment, though not in cultivar mixtures. And breeders are having a busy week of it.

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.