A global campaign for agricultural biodiversity

Agricultural biodiversity

The variety of plants and animals that feed and nurture us and without which we could not survive.

Agricultural biodiversity

• Enables plants and animals to evolve and adapt to different growing conditions

• Farmers and breeders

depend on this diversity

for crop and animal

improvement

Agricultural biodiversity can deliver major benefits

• It can improve agricultural productivity without costly inputs

• It buffers yields

Agricultural biodiversity can deliver major benefits

• It is our best hope for dealing with the threat that climate change poses to agriculture

Agricultural biodiversity can deliver major benefits

• It can significantly improve human nutrition • It can boost people’s incomes

Yet agricultural biodiversity faces major threats

• According to Bioversity research, by 2055, more than half of 23 crops studied—including cereals such as wheat, rye and oats—will lose land suitable for their cultivation due to climate change

• This loss will fall disproportionately on sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean

• The transfer of agricultural lands to biofuels production further limits the space available for producing food

About Bioversity

Bioversity International’s aim is—through the conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity—to promote the greater well-being of people, particularly poor people in developing countries, by helping them to achieve food security, to improve their health and nutrition, to boost their incomes, and to conserve the natural resources on which they depend.

Bioversity’s commitment to public awareness

• Our stakeholders have told us that making people aware of the potential of diversity to improve their health and well-being is the most important way we can contribute to the Millennium Development Goals.

2010

• Declared by the United Nations to be the International Year of Biodiversity

About the Diversity for Life campaign

For people to value and use agricultural biodiversity

Campaign goal

Policymakers, schools, media

Target audiences

Our lives depend on agricultural biodiversity. It influences our health, our history, our culture and our identity.

Key message

Teaching the teachers (Italy)Museum exhibit and public lectures (Kenya)

Oral history project (India, Italy, Kenya, Peru, Senegal)

Journalist training (South America, East Africa)Rural radio programming (Kenya, Peru)

Policymaker roundtables (Peru, Philippines)Photography contest (global)

The Guardians of Diversity (Mediterranean)La Settimana della Biodiversita’ (Italy)

Selected activities

• CBD Secretariat• Slow Food• InterPress Service• Ctm altromercato• IFAD• FAO• Museums, NARS, grassroots organizations in

Peru, Italy, Kenya. India, Senegal

Partners

For more information about the campaign, visit:

www.diversityforlife.org