Sixth mass extinction of wildlife also threatens global food supplies / Guardians of the grain. By Chitrangada Choudhury

The sixth mass extinction of global wildlife already under way is seriously threatening the world’s food supplies, according to experts. “Huge proportions of the plant and animal species that form the foundation of our food supply are just as endangered [as wildlife] and are getting almost no attention,” said Ann Tutwiler, director general of Bioversity International, a research group that published a new report on Tuesday

“If there is one thing we cannot allow to become extinct, it is the species that provide the food that sustains each and every one of the seven billion people on our planet,” she said in an article for the Guardian. “This ‘agrobiodiversity’ is a precious resource that we are losing, and yet it can also help solve or mitigate many challenges the world is facing. It has a critical yet overlooked role in helping us improve global nutrition, reduce our impact on the environment and adapt to climate change.”

Three-quarters of the world’s food today comes from just 12 crops and five animal species and this leaves supplies very vulnerable to disease and pests that can sweep through large areas of monocultures, as happened in the Irish potato famine when a million people starved to death. Reliance on only a few strains also means the world’s fast changing climate will cut yields just as the demand from a growing global population is rising.

There are tens of thousands of wild or rarely cultivated species that could provide a richly varied range of nutritious foods, resistant to disease and tolerant of the changing environment. But the destruction of wild areas, pollution and overhunting has started a mass extinction of species on Earth. The focus to date has been on wild animals – half of which have been lost in the last 40 years – but the new report reveals that the same pressures are endangering humanity’s food supply, with at least 1,000 cultivated species already endangered.

Tutwiler said saving the world’s agrobiodiversity is also vital in tackling the number one cause of human death and disability in the world – poor diet, which includes both too much and too little food. “We are not winning the battle against obesity and undernutrition,” she said. “Poor diets are in large part because we have very unified diets based on a narrow set of commodities and we are not consuming enough diversity.”… read more:


A few decades ago, India was estimated to have over 100,000 rice varieties. Much of this heritage has been irretrievably lost.  Through their knowledges, skills and cultures, farmers here have sustained, and are preserving close to 200 heirloom rice varieties.  India is rice country: the cereal provides daily sustenance for over 60% of Indians, and occupies the greatest cultivated area. But its primacy belies a darker story of genetic and cultural erosion. 

Half a century ago, we had over a lakh rice varieties - a stunning diversity in taste, nutrition, pest-resistance and, crucially, in this age of climate change and natural disasters, adaptability to agro-climatic conditions. As eminent rice scientist R.H. Richharia wrote in his 1966 classic Rices of India, Indian farmers knew how to cultivate rice with growing durations ranging from 60 to 200 days. There were varieties they grew at sea level, on farms 7,000 feet higher, and on a range of lands in between. Some varieties could grow in 20-50 feet of water. Others could make do with annual rainfall of hardly 25-30 inches. Yet others were saline-tolerant.

Today, much of this biodiversity is irretrievably lost, forced out by decades of Green Revolution agriculture, where ‘high-yield’ hybrids and varieties were pushed, with petrochemical inputs (pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers) and associated technologies. Such ‘superior’ varieties are estimated to constitute over 80% of India’s rice acreage.

Koraput is often depicted as a ‘backward’ region. But its vast, undulating landscape has historically been among the world’s leading areas for rice diversification. And even as hybrid varieties have colonised much of India’s paddy fields, Koraput’s loyalty to the local endures. In the 1950s an official survey found that farmers here grew over 1,700 kinds of rice. And farmers like Kamli are the reason that a sliver of India’s rice diversity still survives.


A grassroots movement in Koraput, with over 1,400 farmer-conservators at its heart, is one of other such groups now trying to safeguard what remains of this genetic-cultural wealth. The effort is anchored by ecologist Dr. Debal Deb, aided by staff from a local organisation, Living Farms... read more: http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/agriculture/guardians-of-the-grain/article19735976.ece


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