National Conference
Environment and Biodiversity of India 30th – 31st December 2011, New Delhi
[AB176] Biodiversity for food and nutritional security Sharmila Dutta Deka Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat ABSTRACT Climate change and increasingly dramatic shifts in land use threaten to exacerbate the existing biodiversity crisis. Meeting the imperative of environmental stewardship requires support for the scientific endeavours of documenting, predicting and managing ecological change on a global scale. Various international conventions have addressed this topic; this has moved the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources issue to the top of the international development agenda. Conservation, exploration, collection, characterization, evaluation and documentation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture are essential in meeting the goals of the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food Summit Plan of Action and for sustainable agricultural development for this and future generations. Over the past decade, a series of important steps have been taken to protect agro-biodiversity in particular, which mainly includes the plant genetic resources on which agriculture depends. These and further efforts are vital for enabling countries and communities to meet their food needs, for improving rural livelihoods, and ultimately for protecting the well-being of all people now and in the future. Economic and social development often leads to abandonment of agro-bio diverse systems, abandoning valuable assets, preventing agro-biodiversity from contributing to healthy and sustainable livelihoods. Unfortunately, commercialization of markets limits opportunities for smallscale farmers selling minor crops. Strategies must be develop for identification of management practices, technologies and policies that promote the positive and mitigate the negative impacts of agriculture on biodiversity, and enhance productivity and the capacity to sustain livelihoods. Introduction of CBM (Community Biodiversity Management) will strengthen the capacity of farmers, their communities, and organisations and other stakeholders, including agro-enterprises to manage agricultural biodiversity and the promotion of increased awareness and responsible action. Home garden is another very effective participatory approach for conservation of genetic resources and food diversification for rural nutritional security. Key words: Biodiversity, Agro-biodiversity, nutritional security, CBM, home gardening
Š 2011. National Conference on Environment and Biodiversity of India Published by North East Centre for Environmental Education and Research (NECEER), Imphal
133