Why are Farmers and Biodiversity Crucial?

Farmers grow the food that we need to survive. Farmers – and indeed all of us – rely on a diversity of seed varieties to make sure we have enough healthy, nutritious food to live full lives, today and in the future.

Small-scale farmers have created and maintained the knowledge and biodiversity that is the basis of the planet’s food supply for thousands of years. Through saving, sharing, and selecting seeds, they create new varieties of plants that are more resistant to threats that are both traditional, like diseases and pests, and new, like global climate change. Farmers are the custodians of our environment, protecting and enriching land, forests, and water for the benefit of all.

This biodiversity acts as a security blanket for environmental and social change. With different varieties of plants, not only are we better able to develop food crops that are more productive, more resilient, and more nutritious, but we are also better prepared to face local crises like drought. In such cases, planting a larger pool of varieties increases our chances of finding one or more of the crops that will survive to provide food – ensuring a more stable food supply. In much the same way, diversity will be crucial to overcoming the broader food safety emergencies that are looming due to global climate change.

The small-scale farmers that protect our agricultural biodiversity do so because they depend on it for their well-being. Two thirds of the world’s poor are found in the rural areas of developing countries, and most of them depend on agriculture to reduce hunger.

That’s why USC Canada supports community-led initiatives that build on local farmers’ time-tested knowledge and practices to better the lives of families and communities. This approach prevents communities from turning to farming methods that might be incompatible with local growing conditions and bad for biodiversity.

Support for these communities is not only key to improving local livelihoods, it’s paramount to safeguarding our planet.