Biodiversity for Food & Agriculture : Do We really care ?

 


Biodiversity for Food & Agriculture : Do We really care ?

Biodiversity for food and agriculture includes the components of biological diversity that are essential for feeding human populations and improving the quality of life. It includes the variety and variability of ecosystems, animals, plants and micro-organisms, at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels, which are necessary to sustain human life as well as the key functions of ecosystems.
Such diversity is the result of thousands of years of farmers’ and breeders’ activities, land and forest utilization, and fisheries and aquaculture activities combined with millions of years of natural selection. Most of the human population lives in areas where food production and nature co-exist together.
The large and increasing number of under- and mal-nourished in the world, the prospect of rising inequality, difficulty of access to food by the most vulnerable populations, the decreased availability of natural resources and the uncertainty of climate change are among the main challenges facing FAO and its work on biodiversity for food and agriculture.
It is foreseen that developing countries will, in some areas, show a decrease in agricultural productivity between 20-40% due to the effects of climate change. This may lead to pressure on natural resources.
The conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity for food and agriculture play a critical role in the fight against hunger, by ensuring environmental sustainability while increasing food and agriculture production. It is imperative to do so in a sustainable way: harvesting resources without compromising the natural capital, including biodiversity and ecosystem services, and capitalizing on biological processes.
To cope with all these challenges and uncertainties a large reservoir of genetic and species diversity will need to be maintained and sustainably used. This diversity will further help maintain and rehabilitate productive ecosystems to supply future generations with abundant food and agriculture

Instruments:

International agreements, global plans of action and other instruments play an important role in the regulation of the use, transfer, protection, management and trade of biological diversity at the regional, national and international levels. These instruments include:

  • INTERNATIONAL TREATY ON PLANT GENETIC RESOURCES FOR FOOD AND AGRICULTURE
  • INTERNATIONAL PLANT PROTECTION CONVENTION
  • CODE OF CONDUCT FOR RESPONSIBLE FISHERIES
  • GLOBAL PLAN OF ACTION FOR ANIMAL GENETIC RESOURCES
  • GLOBAL PLAN OF ACTION ON THE CONSERVATION AND SUSTAINABLE UTILIZATION OF PLANT GENETIC RESOURCES
  • INTERNATIONAL CODE OF CONDUCT FOR GERMPLASM COLLECTING AND TRANSFER
  • GENEBANK STANDARDS.
Loss of Crop and Genetic Diversity :
Crop diversity has declined on most of farms over the last century due to mechanization because mechanization requires farms to have uniform crop types, structure and management practices.


For example, traditional farm includes grains, pulses,vegetables, spices, medicinal plants, livestock and trees. In contrast, most modern farms are monocultures – one crop species planted over a large area. The use of monocultures increases a farm’s de pendence of pesticides because pest can easily find food source in monoculture than in diverse crop mixture. The genetic diversity of crops has declined with industrial agriculture. Although hundred of edible plant species have been important in traditional crop systems, today only three crops- Rice(Paddy ), Wheat and Maize provide 60% of our plant based diet world eide. According to FAO ( Food and Agriculture Organisation ), 75 % of crop diversity was lost during the twentieth century. Modern varieties have supplanted traditional varieties for 70% of world’ maize, 75% of Asian rice and 50% of wheat in Africa, Latin America and Asia. 

In 1950, India had 30,000 wild varieties of Rice, but today by 2010, only 50 are expected to remain. Over the next few decades humanity must develop forms of agriculture that can meet the needs of a growing population while minimizing our impact on the environment. For that, Agriculture must be done more sustainable way- making a farm as a reservoirs and corridors of biodiversity


I would Thank Food and Agriculture Organization of the united nations form where i could fetch this data .

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