Nibbles: Pacific genebank, IPBES report, New mangoes, British apples, Greek landraces, Fonio, Space seeds, Macadamia cryo

New Zealand supports SPC regional crops and trees genebank in a big way.
Some of those trees are wild species that contribute to food security, and more must be done to conserve them.
Some trees are crops of course, like mangoes, and scientists are doing their bit for them in the Philippines.
Wait, isn’t it too early for the usual BBC saving-the-apple story? Usually comes in the autumn.
Who needs genebanks when you can inscribe landraces in a National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Maybe try it with fonio next?
Or just send seeds into space?
Maybe including macadamia, or is space not cold enough for them?

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.