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Agricultural biodiversity has hitherto been valued almost exclusively as a source of traits that can be used in scientific breeding programs to improve the productivity of crop varieties and livestock breeds. In particular, a wider deployment of agricultural biodiversity is an essential component in the sustainable delivery of a more secure food supply. Diversity of kingdoms, species and genepools can increase the productivity of farming systems in a range of growing conditions, and more diverse farming systems are also generally more resilient in the face of perturbations, thus enhancing food security.
Diversity can maintain and increase soil fertility and mitigate the impact of pests and diseases. Diversity of diet, founded on diverse farming systems, delivers better nutrition and greater health, with additional benefits for human productivity and livelihoods. Agricultural biodiversity will also be absolutely essential to cope with the predicted impacts of climate change, not simply as a source of traits but as the underpinnings of more resilient farm ecosystems.
Many of the benefits of agricultural biodiversity are manifested at different ecological and human scales, and cut across political divisions, requiring a cross-sectoral approach to reassess the role of agricultural biodiversity in sustainable and secure food production.
Increasing the deployment of biodiversity in agricultural systems will have multiple effects that go beyond the production perspective of this paper. Programs that aim to improve food security or social resilience through biodiversity may well have unmeasured effects on factors such as cultural preservation, health and incomes, and vice versa. Multiple case studies from one such project indicate that relatively simple interventions, such as adding poultry-keeping to a family’s activities, can improve income, housing, education, food security and many other factors. However, we need a greatly expanded knowledge base to respond effectively to these opportunities.
Recent concerns about high food prices and low food availability indicate that agriculture and agricultural production are clearly back on the international agenda. There is a new recognition of the profound challenges faced in increasing production to meet the needs of a growing population under changing climates and the need to do so in a sustainable manner. From this perspective, agricultural biodiversity clearly has an increasingly important role to play, not simply in the classical paradigm as a provider of traits for the incremental, never-ending improvement of staples, but more effectively as an essential component of improved production systems. Of course there are other elements of food-systems and production that require additional research and development, such as harvesting and post-harvest storage, small-scale processing (and domestic cooking methods) and marketing to ensure sustainable improvements in food and nutrition security; more effective use of agricultural biodiversity needs to take its place alongside these sectors.