Nibbles: Nourishing investments, Genebank RoI, Seed science double, Ecuador genebank, Ethiopian genebank, MSSRF genebank, CG genebanks, Botanic gardens, SwissAid saves seeds, Brazil conservation, Indian diner, Kenyan food, Saladino on citrus, Lost apple, Seed Savers, Hybrids, Germplasm crime

All of IFAD’s 5 investments that will help nourish the world involve crop diversity. Well I never.
And yet we still have to have articles on communicating the importance of genebanks.
Cosmos tries to do it by pointing to the science.
Smithsonian Magazine tries to do it by saying it’s tricky.
Genebanks try to do it by having nice new websites and talking to the media. Some of the biggest media.
CGIAR tries to do it by calling them an Accelerator.
IIED tries to do it by saying even botanic gardens can help farmers.
SwissAid thinks “[n]ational and international gene banks should give farmers’ organizations low-threshold access to their collections.” No argument there.
Maybe we should have songs about genebanks, like the Maxakali have about the Atlantic Forest.
Or we could just talk about food, food, glorious food.
Could also just fall back on the good old canonical lost-heirloom-apple-found story.
Or the canonical medical case for “ancient grains” story.
Though even there the heirlooms vs hybrids debate will rage I suppose…
But, whatever we do, let’s not take it to extremes, shall we?