Agricultural biodiversity
It can be defined as "the variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels that sustain the ecosystem structures, functions and processes in and around production systems, and that provide food and non-food agricultural products.”[1] It is managed by farmers, pastoralists, fishers and forest dwellers, agrobiodiversity provides stability, adaptability and resilience and constitutes a key element of the livelihood strategies of rural communities throughout the world.
)[10] Genetic diversity is not static but is constantly evolving in response to changes in the environment and according to human intervention, whether farmers or breeders.
It also encompasses what is known as “associated biodiversity”, the vast range of organisms that live in and around food and agricultural production systems, sustaining them and contributing to their output."
The conservation and sustainable use of local aquatic ecosystems, ponds, rivers, and coastal commons by artisanal fisherfolk and smallholder farmers is important to the survival of both humans and the environment.
Since aquatic organisms, including fish, provide much of our food supply as well as underpinning the income of coastal peoples, it is critical that fisherfolk and smallholder farmers have genetic reserves and sustainable ecosystems to draw upon as aquaculture and marine fisheries management continue to evolve.
We may forgo wheat production in that area and plant a different species altogether, relying on interspecific diversity.
Ecosystem diversity refers to the variety and variability of different components in a given geographical area (e.g. landscape, country).
[14] They are usually clustered into four broader categories: provisioning (direct provision of goods such as food and water), supporting (the services that are needed for agriculture to be healthy, such as soil), regulating (regulating natural processes needed in agriculture such as pollination, carbon capture or pest control), or cultural (recreational, aesthetic and spiritual benefits).
Food biodiversity also covers subspecies or varieties of crops, for example the many forms of the Brassica oleracea species (cauliflowers, different broccolis, cabbages, Brussels sprouts, etc.).
Agrobiodiversity can support wild biodiversity through the use of field margins, riparian corridors, hedgerows and clumps of trees, which provide and connect habitats.
[21] Agrobiodiversity makes several contributions to regulating services, which control the natural processes needed for a healthy agroecosystem.
[25] Agrobiodiversity contributes to carbon capture if used as part of a package of agroecological practices, for example by providing cover crops which can be dug into the land as green manure; maintaining tree stands and hedgerows; and protecting the integrity of soils so that they continue to house local microbes.
Farmers and breeders can use genetic diversity to breed varieties which are more tolerant to changing climate conditions, and which, combined with practices like conservation agriculture, can increase sequestration in soils and biomass, and reduce emissions by avoiding the degrading of farmlands.
[26] Using agroforestry, the inclusion of trees and shrubs as an integral part of a farming system, can also successfully sequester carbon.
Agrobiodiversity provides locally appreciated crops and species, and also unique varieties which have cultural significance.
[30] Genetic diversity is maintained by resource-poor farmers because of many non-monetary values, including culture and food.
[31] Agrobiodiversity is threatened by changing patterns of land use (urbanization, deforestation), agricultural modernization (monocultures and abandoning of traditional, biodiversity-based practices); Westernization of diets and their supply chains.
[40] The modern 'global standard' diet contains an increasingly large percentage of a relatively small number of major staple commodity crops, which have increased substantially in the share of the total food energy (calories), protein, fat, and food weight that they provide to the world's human population, including wheat, rice, sugar, maize, soybean (by +284%[41]), palm oil (by +173%[41]), and sunflower (by +246%[41]).
Other crops have declined sharply over the same period, including rye, yam, sweet potato (by -45%[41]), cassava (by -38%[41]), coconut, sorghum (by -52%[41]) and millets (by -45%[41]).
On monoculture farms, the approach is generally to suppress damaging associated diversity using a suite of biologically destructive pesticides, mechanized tools and transgenic engineering techniques, then to rotate crops.
for food and agriculture outside their natural habitat, in a managed environment including: botanical gardens, seedbanks, pollenbanks, field genebanks, cryobank or herbaria.
Ex situ conservation is considered a relatively reliable way of maintaining genetic diversity, since it is usually preserved over the longer term and is less prone to change.
Conserving agrobiodiversity in situ has the benefit that species can continue to evolve in response to natural and human pressures.
There, farmers continue to grow landraces and maintain traditional knowledge and seed management practices[54][55] in a process known as de facto conservation.
