Nibbles: Crop change, Chinese chocolate, Food system, Eating local, Heritage wheat, NTFPs, Distinguished ethnobotanist, Pumpkins, Garum recipe, Fermentation, Archaea, NBPGR interview

IFAD says farmers might need to change crops. Farmers unavailable for comment as presumably they’re too busy changing crops.
Case in point: China moves into cacao.
The food system is at the centre of all our ills. But I’m not sure switching from maize to sorghum is going to cut it.
And neither will watching those food miles, alas.
Example of a farmer changing crops, watching food miles and diversifying the food system.
I suppose we could also just eat more trees?
We’ll need ethnobotanists for that.
And there’s clearly plenty of pumpkins out there.
Maybe garum would go well with some of those NTFPs, and pumpkins.
Do they teach garum at Fermentation School?
Whoa, I did not realize archaea in the vertebrate gut feed on bacterial fermentation products.
And let’s not forget to put everything in genebanks before it’s too late so we have a chance to do all of the above.

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.