Why Biodiversity is Important for Food Security (19459000)
As the COP16 summit in Cali, Colombia, draws to a close, it is increasingly clear that food security and biodiversity are closely linked. Why does the planet’s biodiversity affect the food we eat so much?
How important is biodiversity for food?
FoodNavigator reported that Theodora Ewer is the project manager for Systemiq and FOLU. Species diversity is important for ecosystem services, such as pollination and natural pest control. It also contributes to soil health, water retention, and nutrient cycles. It is important to have genetic diversity in crop and livestock varieties. The range of breeds and genetic variation within a species is what makes up this diversity. It improves the adaptability of populations to environmental pressures and breeding challenges.
Genetic diversity, for example, allows for the selection of traits to support survival in extreme conditions such as heat, drought, and salinity and also enables resistance to specific diseases and pests. Species diversity in the food system also enhances dietary diversity, as different species contain distinct micronutrients that are essential for human health.
FoodNavigator reported that “there is no food for humans without the food chain, which includes everything from microorganisms transforming the inorganic into the organic, to ruminants improving ecosystem function in the world’s largest biome: grasslands.” Simon Kraemer was the policy lead for the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture.
For thousands of years, Indigenous food systems have favored ecosystems to increase biocultural diversity. Biodiversity has declined over the last 2,000 years since agriculture became exploitative, with the use of plows and the separation of plant and animal agriculture.
Tom Stuart, senior policy advisor at WWF, told FoodNavigator that soil health is heavily impacted by biodiversity, which in turn impacts plant growth. “Soil, which is more complex than dead matter, contains living organisms. They help the soil function properly, by making nutrients available to plants and forming structures to support root growth.
He continued: “Nature provides important ecosystem services, such as pollination and pest control. The decomposition of waste is also provided by nature. These services decline when biodiversity declines. This makes it harder to produce the food we depend on.
What is the impact of reduced biodiversity on food security?
EARA's Kraemer tells us that without biodiversity, food will be less nutritious, more susceptible to crop diseases and production more fragile.
Stuart from WWF told us that poor soil health has a clear impact on the food system. Soil degradation and loss pose serious risks to long-term production and in many cases the fields themselves are unproductive, as seen in ‘peat waste’. The UK’s second lowest arable crop yield was recorded in 2024. This is due to flooding.
The impact of extreme rainfall would have been reduced if soils were more resilient and better structured, adapted to climate change. The collapse of the pollinator population in some regions has led growers to have to manually pollinate their cherry trees.
Ewer, Ewer of Systemiq, told us that a decline in biodiversity can disrupt the ecosystem services that biodiversity provides. In the absence of ecosystem services, farmers are forced to rely on narrower varieties of crops. This leads them to adopt monoculture production systems, which further reduce biodiversity and require the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. The increased use of chemicals then exacerbates biodiversity loss, soil degradation, pollution, adverse health effects, and economic losses.
With fewer genetic varieties and species, agricultural systems are more susceptible to diseases and pests. They are also becoming more vulnerable due to climate change. A lack of genetic diversity can lead to widespread crop failures in some species, which could lead to severe food shortages or increased food insecurity.
COP16 Achievements
COP16 ended on November 1st. What were the main achievements of COP16?
Governments have agreed to create a fund to share the benefits of using digital sequence data (DSD), derived from genetic resources. DSD are sequenced data from nature that are made available online. Research derived from DSD can be relevant to agriculture and conservation as well as medicine, vaccines and public health. Companies that use DSD from genetic diversity resources are required to contribute to the fund. Half of the proceeds will go to local and indigenous communities.
Talks on a bigger biodiversity fund have been suspended. WWF says progress has also been lost under the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.
What is the impact of food production on biodiversity?
WWF's Stuart argues that, paradoxically, while biodiversity is vital to food production and food loss, the food industry is also a big culprit, according to Stuart.
Pesticides can affect both target plants and non-target animals, as well as fungi. Overcrowding of livestock and excessive tillage are two major factors in soil degradation. Another factor is that soil organic matter on cropland has declined due to our shift from using animal manure to synthetic fertilisers (particularly in the UK).
Systemiq's Ewer says increasing agricultural land is currently threatening 85,000 species.
What can be done to increase biodiversity?
Stuart of WWF says there are many different ways to boost biodiversity. According to Stuart, there are many ways to increase biodiversity. These include ploughing less frequently and less deeply, reducing stocking rates of livestock and using fewer synthetic inputs.
Stuart added that these resources can be supported by agricultural programmes, such as the environmental land management programmes in England and the second pillar programmes (a rural development policy within the EU's Common Agricultural Policy or CAP).
COP29
The COP19 summit will begin next week in Baku, Azerbaijan. The food theme from the COP28 summit will continue, commentators say. Read more Click here.
Regenerative agriculture can also contribute positively to biodiversity. Ewer explained that “regenerative agriculture” is a term that, while there is no universally accepted definition, refers to farming practices that enhance and support biodiversity, rather than diminish it.
The FOLU analysis, for example, shows that crop diversification has a positive effect on biodiversity, both of domestic and wild species. Techniques such as intercropping, crop rotation and cover crops can increase biodiversity, the analysis found.
Integrating natural structures also has a positive impact on biodiversity. On the ground, practices such as establishing flower strips, grassy borders or fallow periods of more than six months can create habitats for a variety of species. These features increase biodiversity at the landscape scale by creating diverse microhabitats and providing ecosystem services.
English 
French