biodiversity

This article, published in the Environmental Modeling & Assessment journal, models the supply and demand for agricultural goods and assess and compares how welfare, land use, and biodiversity are affected under intensive and extensive farming systems at market equilibrium instead of at exogenous production levels. »

This report stresses that the world’s livestock diversity remains at risk and that institutional frameworks for the management of animal genetic resources needs to be improved. Some of its key findings are that livestock diversity is important to improve the adaptation capabilities and resilience of production systems to future climate challenges; that roles and values of genetic resources remain diverse, especially in poor people’s livelihoods; and that the impact of livestock-sector trends are increasingly impacting the animal genetic resources. »

This briefing note by Oxfam highlights lessons learned from the three-year global programme ‘Putting lessons into practice: Scaling up People’s Biodiversity Management for Food Security’. Findings on innovation and learning from the three partner countries have been consolidated into a global framework, and further conceptualised into six scaling up pathways, to ensure widespread impact—in such a way that social, environmental, or economic conditions can be enhanced beyond the context of this programme. »

This set of factsheets by Bioversity International shows how the ‘Seeds for Needs’ initiative works with farmers to research how agricultural biodiversity can help minimize the risks associated with climate change. The concept is simple – if farmers have better information and access to a wide range of varieties, they are more able to choose what best suits their conditions and cope with unpredictable weather. Seeds for Needs is trying to encourage this by exposing farmers to more crop varieties and increase their first-hand knowledge about different traits and options available and strengthening their seed systems and seed-saving capacity so that they always have access to planting material that fits their changing needs. »

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) argues that genetic resources have a critical role to play in feeding the world in light of climate change, as shown in this infographic. A recent book (PDF) of FAO, “Coping with climate change: the roles of genetic resources for food and agriculture”, highlights the potential use of genetic resources as a basis for adaptation and of an ecosystem approach to meet the challenges of climate change. The report covers plant, animal, forest, aquatic, invertebrate and micro-organism genetic resources. »

On its website, PAEPARD (the Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development) has again published an extensive list of funding opportunities on Agricultural Research for Development for the coming months. The list is divided in funds for Agriculture, Climate change, Bio-diversity, Fellowships/scholarships and Other. To see the list, please visit the »