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What does it mean for biodiversity for food and agriculture to thrive? Not merely to endure climate shocks, market disruptions, or policy changes, but to regenerate, nourish communities, support resilient livelihoods, and sustain food systems for future generations?
At a time when climate change and its impacts, accelerating biodiversity loss, land degradation, and growing nutritional insecurity are converging, this question demands urgent attention. Biodiversity for food and agriculture encompasses the domesticated animals and plants used in livestock, crop, forest, and aquaculture systems; harvested forest and aquatic species; wild relatives of domesticated species; and other wild species collected for food and non-food products.
It also includes “associated biodiversity”, the vast array of organisms living in and around food production systems that sustain ecosystem functions and contribute to productivity (FAO, 2019).
Over the decades, loss of agricultural biodiversity has been driven largely by the simplification and intensification of food production systems. Monocropping, where vast areas are planted with a single crop variety, has replaced diverse traditional farming systems, reducing genetic and species diversity in fields and landscapes.
The widespread adoption of uniform, high-yielding crop and livestock breeds has further narrowed the genetic base of agriculture, making food systems more vulnerable to pests, diseases, and climate shocks.
Additionally, heavy use of synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides has led to soil degradation and elimination of numerous beneficial organisms such as pollinators, natural pest predators, and soil microbes that are essential for healthy and productive agro-ecosystems. While it is undeniable that those packages have significantly mitigated against food insecurity, famine, and starvation over the past 50 years, their shortcomings are evident.
Change of land-use, occasioned by deforestation, wetland drainage, and expansion of agriculture into natural habitats, has destroyed ecosystems that harbor wild food species and the wild relatives of crops and livestock. Unfortunately, though, once lost, biodiversity cannot be fully recovered, yet it is fast eroding.
The time to act, therefore, is now. Conservation is an urgent responsibility. Valuable wild relatives of domesticated crops and livestock in natural ecosystems are declining, with nearly 20% of wild species used as sources of human food listed as threatened in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (2021). At the same time, almost one-third of global marine fish stocks are overfished.
With the adoption of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the conclusion of the COP15 to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UN-CBD) marked a fundamental moment for the planet. This comes at a time when nature is in steep decline, threatening the survival of approximately one million species and undermining both the well-being and livelihoods of billions of people worldwide. The agreement reflects a growing global recognition that biodiversity loss is not a distant environmental issue, but an immediate social and economic crisis.
The GBF sets out a roadmap to halt and reverse nature loss, with clear global targets to be achieved by 2030 and beyond. At its core, the framework seeks to protect ecosystems, promote the sustainable use of biodiversity, and ensure equitable sharing of the benefits derived from nature. However, governments should create enabling policies for their implementation, invest in conservation and restoration using digital technologies and decision-making tools to align agricultural, environmental, and trade policies with sustainability goals.
-The writer is the Research Lead on Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture at the Alliance of Biodiversity International and CIAT
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What does it mean for biodiversity for food and agriculture to thrive? Not merely to endure climate shocks, market disruptions, or policy changes, but to regenerate, nourish communities, support resilient livelihoods, and sustain food systems for future generations?
At a time when climate change and its impacts, accelerating biodiversity loss, land degradation, and growing nutritional insecurity are converging, this question demands urgent attention. Biodiversity for food and agriculture encompasses the domesticated animals and plants used in livestock, crop, forest, and aquaculture systems; harvested forest and aquatic species; wild relatives of domesticated species; and other wild species collected for food and non-food products.
It also includes “associated biodiversity”, the vast array of organisms living in and around food production systems that sustain ecosystem functions and contribute to productivity (FAO, 2019).
Over the decades, loss of agricultural biodiversity has been driven largely by the simplification and intensification of food production systems. Monocropping, where vast areas are planted with a single crop variety, has replaced diverse traditional farming systems, reducing genetic and species diversity in fields and landscapes.
The widespread adoption of uniform, high-yielding crop and livestock breeds has further narrowed the genetic base of agriculture, making food systems more vulnerable to pests, diseases, and climate shocks.
Additionally, heavy use of synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides has led to soil degradation and elimination of numerous beneficial organisms such as pollinators, natural pest predators, and soil microbes that are essential for healthy and productive agro-ecosystems. While it is undeniable that those packages have significantly mitigated against food insecurity, famine, and starvation over the past 50 years, their shortcomings are evident.
Change of land-use, occasioned by deforestation, wetland drainage, and expansion of agriculture into natural habitats, has destroyed ecosystems that harbor wild food species and the wild relatives of crops and livestock. Unfortunately, though, once lost, biodiversity cannot be fully recovered, yet it is fast eroding.
The time to act, therefore, is now. Conservation is an urgent responsibility. Valuable wild relatives of domesticated crops and livestock in natural ecosystems are declining, with nearly 20% of wild species used as sources of human food listed as threatened in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (2021). At the same time, almost one-third of global marine fish stocks are overfished.
With the adoption of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the conclusion of the COP15 to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UN-CBD) marked a fundamental moment for the planet. This comes at a time when nature is in steep decline, threatening the survival of approximately one million species and undermining both the well-being and livelihoods of billions of people worldwide. The agreement reflects a growing global recognition that biodiversity loss is not a distant environmental issue, but an immediate social and economic crisis.
The GBF sets out a roadmap to halt and reverse nature loss, with clear global targets to be achieved by 2030 and beyond. At its core, the framework seeks to protect ecosystems, promote the sustainable use of biodiversity, and ensure equitable sharing of the benefits derived from nature. However, governments should create enabling policies for their implementation, invest in conservation and restoration using digital technologies and decision-making tools to align agricultural, environmental, and trade policies with sustainability goals.
-The writer is the Research Lead on Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture at the Alliance of Biodiversity International and CIAT
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By Carlo Fadda