Nibbles: USDA germplasm plan, Millet CoP, Seed system resources, Kenyan sorghum Scottish crab apples, Heirloom maize, Yak cheese, Indian mangoes

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a new National Strategic Germplasm and Cultivar Collection Assessment and Utilization Plan. Quite the tour de force. Now to get it funded.
Yes, there’s now a community of practice on millets. Joined!
The Seed System Lab at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences has lots of interesting resources on its new website.
The latest on the Kenyan genebank’s sorghum work.
Why wouldn’t Scotland have a crab apple genebank?
Why Jimmy Red maize is worth saving, despite its faults.
Yak cheese? Yes, please.
And nice pics of Indian mangoes to close.

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.