Agriculture and conservation must coexist to step up our food security

The urgency for environmental conservation intensifies as climate change impacts become more severe. At the same time, population growth, particularly in Africa, requires increased food production.

These challenges raise a complex question: Can agriculture and conservation coexist?

Modern food production has almost always come at the cost of nature and biodiversity. More than half the world’s habitable land is used to cultivate food.

Agriculture is the leading driver of biodiversity loss, and the trend is expected to continue without radical changes in food production. 

Agricultural biodiversity—the plants and animals used to feed humanity – have disappeared at alarming rates: as much as 90 per cent of crop varieties and half of domestic animals have been lost. These trends must be stopped. Though it may seem paradoxical, reversing nature and biodiversity loss can happen in tandem with producing more, healthier food.

At a May meeting in Nairobi of the scientific advisory body of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), experts convened by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT overwhelmingly agreed achieving this coexistence requires a profound transformation involving all members of society: NGOs, producers, consumers, policymakers, researchers, businesses and governments.

Crucially, these stakeholders must work together, aligning their expertise, influence and motivations to build food systems that respect nature. This collaboration first requires greater global awareness of the toll taken on nature by food production: CBD experts need to prioritise mass communication of the link between food production and biodiversity loss and climate threats.

Second, they need to research and promote realistic solutions. Finally, they must ensure the most powerful players – investors and governments – accountably enact change.

Food system transformation can seem overwhelming because the paradigm shift needed change is huge. My colleagues and I believe that community-centric change is a key starting point, particularly in Africa where there is a confluence of land degradation caused by food systems; communities that are willing to take replicable, example-setting action; on-the-ground researchers filling knowledge gaps; and international funders. Traditional knowledge, devalued and displaced along with traditional agrobiodiversity, must be preserved, and integrated into local food system change. Researchers and international development organisations must correct this “oversight” and integrate ancestral knowledge in implementation.

One way to do this is to ensure production of and equitable access to, seeds of traditional crop varieties, and systematically gather the know-how to produce these crops. This can be supported by farmer-managed seed systems underpinned by community seedbanks backstopped by research organisations like CGIAR.

Local seed banks involve farmers who select, produce, preserve, exchange, and manage seeds, to reduce reliance on commercial seed suppliers. The community seed system supports community-level resilience, adaptability, sustainability and food. Local seed systems are fundamental to community-based agricultural conservation, which allow communities to benefit directly from sustainable practices while fostering ownership and responsibility toward conservation.

As part of the CGIAR Nature-Positive Solutions Initiative, communities in Western counties of Kisumu and Vihiga established aggregated farms to restore land, increase healthy food production, and boost livelihoods. The farms focus on permaculture, which produce food in harmony with natural ecosystems, and agroforestry, which integrates trees into deforested agricultural land to promote soil health, generate income, and create healthier conditions for livestock.

A harmonious relationship between agriculture and conservation is essential for the long-term sustainability of food production and environmental health. The same goes for collaboration between communities, experts, policymakers and governments.