CONSERVING AGRICULTURAL BIODIVERSITY

Agriculture is a key motor of the global economy. It provides livelihoods and sustenance for one-third of the world's population. It is crucial to rural development and therefore critical to reducing poverty. Agriculture has become more intensive and also more sustainable than ever before; we can now grow more crops per hectare of land than at any other time in history, but the world population and global demand for food are also increasing. Agriculture also has a significant impact on biodiversity, particularly because of the biodiversity found in and around agricultural landscapes. Agriculture, biodiversity and ecosystems constitute a finely interwoven network. Agricultural biodiversity is wide ranging and includes all species and their genetic diversity that are of relevance to agriculture, plus landscape diversity, microbiological diversity in the soil and the diversity of pollinators.

A major global challenge is to secure and increase agricultural yields while simultaneously safeguarding biodiversity, ecosystems, and resources, and to provide robust supply chain infrastructure for those who rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. In other words, we must find strategies to balance agricultural productivity with the needs of biodiversity and ensure that producers are able to deliver their services in a consistent, sustainable way. The globalization and homogenization of diets and farming systems are the greatest threats to agricultural biodiversity. From the pool of 40 animal species and at least 5,538 plant species documented as human food, only 12 crops and five animal species now provide 75% of the world’s food. The reason for this is nothing but the globalization and homogenization of diets and farming systems are the greatest threats to agricultural biodiversity. From the pool of 40 animal species and at least 5,538 plant species documented as human food, only 12 crops and five animal species now provide 75% of the world’s food.

Yet the diversity conserved on and around farms continues to be remarkable. A study in Benin found that households grew and gathered 65 different plant species over a year – including crops and fruit trees, wild trees and bushes. Similarly, single home gardens around the world often harbour 20 to 50 different plants and several small livestock species. Many of these are highly nutritious, adapted to marginal farming conditions, resilient to climate change, with potential for income generation and/or closely linked to cultural identity. Most have never been formally improved and so, despite their local and potential value, are neglected by national conservation efforts

It is a common myth that agricultural intensification is threatening our biodiversity around the world. It threatens rare or almost extinct plant and animal species, adverse effect on biodiversity, changed our dietary patterns, and overuse on energy and water. Therefore, some researchers proposed new paradigms to solve this problem. The main concept of the new paradigms is maintaining intensification of agricultural production but without simplification. In the other words, maximize the productivity from the same area of land while conserving the environment and resources. It is important that healthy ecosystems provide not only goods and services to human but the entire agricultural systems. But recent studies have found the potential societal benefits and monetary value of a large-scale, global adoption of cost-effective sustainable farming methods that boost soil organic matter and biodiversity. These methods include agroforestry and conservation agriculture as well as the use of manure and mulching.  According to Dr Bruno Oberle, IUCN Director General Agriculture has often been portrayed as a threat to biodiversity conservation. Yet conserving living, biodiverse soils and landscapes can boost yields while helping both nature and society. This report clearly identifies common ground and joint aims for farmers and conservationists that can help secure the future of agriculture itself. It has found out the potential societal benefits and monetary value of a large-scale, global adoption of cost-effective sustainable farming methods that boost soil organic matter and biodiversity. These methods include agroforestry and conservation agriculture as well as the use of manure and mulching. The potential yield increases for maize, wheat and rice are worth an estimated US$132 billion. As an additional benefit, the increased organic carbon content in agricultural soils worldwide would enhance their capacity to store water by up to 37 billion m3, reducing the need for irrigation by ca. 4% globally and potentially saving US$ 44 Billion per year, the report finds. By sequestering carbon, biodiversity-rich soils also help mitigate global warming. The report estimates that the annual 0.4% increase in soil carbon content would translate into an additional 1GtC being sequestered per year on average. This represents 10% of global human-induced carbon emissions based on 2017 numbers. This contribution to climate change mitigation would save society an estimated 600 Billion US$ per year in present value terms over the 2020-2050 time horizon, according to the report. According to Ludovic Larbodière, Senior Expert for Agriculture and Environment with IUCN the report shows that by working together, farmers and conservationists can deliver long-term food, nutrition and water security to everyone. Healthy, living soils and landscapes can indeed increase the resilience of food production to the negative impacts of climate change, and can secure the access to safe and nutritious food, particularly for the most vulnerable people in developing countries.

Businesses have pivotal roles to play in achieving agricultural sustainability, especially large companies that can pilot and implement solutions to make agriculture more effective. Countries make strategic conservation decisions, focusing on biodiversity that is important to people’s food and nutrition security and farming systems, highly threatened, globally valuable and unique, or a combination of these. For example, certain crops have great local importance because of the role they have in local cuisine and farming systems. In these cases, it is common for there to be wide diversity in those crops. For example, in Eastern Africa, there is wide banana diversity, which underpins a unique banana-based farming system and cuisine. Other times the conservation of a species is dependent on its use in local cuisine.