Against this backdrop the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in collaboration with FAO is organizing an African food security conference, “Harnessing Ecosystem based Approaches for Food Security and Adaptation to climate change In Africa” which will take place in Nairobi on August 20-21, 2013. Visit the conference website for more information.

FAO Director-General, José Graziano da Silva, and Carlo Petrini, President and founder of the Slow Food Movement at the São José Slow Food Market, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Under a three-year Memorandum of Agreement signed the two organizations will  join forces  to promote more inclusive food and agriculture systems at local, national and international levels.

Actions will focus mainly on joint advocacy campaigns, strengthening local, regional and  global networks and raising awareness of global initiatives such as the International Year Family Farming in 2014. Actions will highlight the value of local foods and neglected food crops while also targeting market access for small-scale producers, enhancing conservation and use of biodiversity, reducing food losses and food waste, and improving animal welfare

Follow the link to read about it in English and in the other 6 UN languages

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together” (African proverb)

If you want to go far, go together – Four countries unite for the conservation of nutritionally-relevant agrobiodiversity

Brazil, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Turkey have thus joined forces under the umbrella of the Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition project – funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and coordinated by Bioversity International – to explore how best to promote nutritionally-rich species and, by so-doing, develop and conserve them.
Local plants and animals, which are often  more nutritious than their introduced  counterparts, are increasingly being recognized as playing an important role in providing the diversity of nutrients needed in human diets for healthy growth and living at a local scale. These plants and animals are equally central to food security and livelihoods. They are often cheap and readily accessible to low-income communities and by integrating them in their farming and aquatic systems, producers reduce the risk of losing the bulk of their production to unpredictable weather and market conditions. Furthermore, because they are well adapted to the environment in which they grow, these species and varieties often require fewer external inputs for optimal growth, making their development less harmful for the environment.
Yet, like most of the Planet’s biodiversity, local species and varieties and the traditional knowledge associated with their collection, preparation and storage is disappearing.

The four countries, which are home to a large variety of plants and animals whose nutritional potential remains largely unknown and therefore untapped, will be the trial sites for this innovate partnership which seeks to address the issue of diminishing local agrobiodiversity by:

1. PROVIDING EVIDENCE – Demonstrating the nutritional value of agricultural biodiversity and the role it plays in promoting healthy diets and strengthening livelihoods.
2. INFLUENCING POLICIES – Using the evidence generated from the project to influence policies, programmes and markets that support the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity with nutrition potential for improved human nutrition and wellbeing.
3. RAISING AWARENESS – Developing tools, knowledge and best practices for scaling up the use of biodiversity for food and nutrition in development programmes, value chains and local community initiatives.

The Project has an active learning agenda by collecting information on best practices and case studies that use agricultural biodiversity in complementary and sustainable strategies that aim to improve dietary diversity and quality, health and nutrition as well as enhance livelihoods and food security through marketing of agricultural biodiversity products.
Help us document your work on conserving and using local agrobiodiversity for nutrition by providing information on your project.

Traditional foods such as mushrooms are being targeted by the BFN Project in Kenya/Photo: Danny Hunter (Bioversity International)

Click here for more information and to obtain guidelines on how to structure the case studies for review.

Implementation support for the project is being provided from the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, with additional funding from the four countries, the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health. Support from the World Food Programme, the Earth Institute, Columbia University, Crops for the Future, the World Agroforestry Centre and The World Vegetable Center – AVRDC is being received to facilitate both implementation and scaling up of activities. National partners come from relevant ministries, the scientific community, non-government organizations, civil society and local communities.

For further information visit www.b4fn.org or contact D.HunterATcgiar.org

This extinction of food is a process, not a singular event. It is buried in the soil, hidden within feedlots and immersed in the ocean. I addressed some of this in my recent TEDx talk on seeds as the buried foundations of food, but seek to highlight this issue more broadly in my upcoming book “Endangered Food: The Erosion of What and How We Eat.”

Because eating is both an agricultural and cultural act, my narrative is focused on conservation through consumption; specifically, on efforts to save foods by eating them.
And this is where I seek your assistance. I recognize this issue is complex and that consumption presents its own set of challenges.

As those intimately involved in biodiversity preservation, you have firsthand knowledge of the ways in which your efforts engage and impact custodian farmers and local communities. Food is the embodied history and cultural identity through which the public can understand and address the global challenge of genetic erosion. To that end, I welcome any case studies on the expansion of underutilized species (both on farms and in markets) and/or examples of eating as a compelling and delicious way to support biodiversity and reshape the future of food through lived experience.

I can be reached for any questions or comments on simran “at” simransethi.com.
Thank you for your consideration.

This is the title of an international workshop organised by Missouri Botanical Gardens and the William Brown Center, in St Louis, USA on 1–2 May 2013.

The experts convened for the meeting considered the ways in which the global crisis of the loss of tens of thousands of plant species, especially those useful to people, can be addressed. These threatened plants include species vital to the lives of people throughout the world, including plants used for food and nutrition, medicine, cultural and spiritual purposes, and the maintenance of livelihoods; they are needed to redress poverty, provide food security, and ensure sustainable development in many nations. The experts recognised the essential role that plants and their associated biocultural knowledge play in the ecosystem services that support all life on Earth. A major outcome of the meeting was the statement “A Global Program on Conservation of Useful Plants and Traditional Knowledge: A Call to Action“, in which an appeal to the international community to address the tragic loss of plant diversity and makes a call for the development of a concerted effort worldwide to address the loss of essential knowledge about plants and their uses, especially at the level of local communities.

Steering Committe meeting
Thursday 21 Feb 2013

The PAR Steering Committee met on 21 February, 2013 by kind invitation of FAO in Rome.

Minutes of the Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research 2nd Steering Committee meeting (21 February 2013)

Documents circulated

1. PAR SC Agenda 2013
2. PAR Activities Report 2012-13

Presentations

1. Agrobiodiversity, Land and People (Dunja Mijatovic)
2. Agrobiodiversity and Climate Change (Paul Bordoni)
3. PAR web site, its initiatives and other communication tools (Paul Bordoni and Urska Merc)

3-4 June – Beijing, China

The Symposium’s objectives are:

• To review and share experiences and knowledge on the use and conservation of agricultural biodiversity,
• To identify opportunities for research collaboration on the conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity for improving smallholder farming household livelihoods through the provision of better ecosystem services.

Expected outputs

• Knowledge and experiences in managing agricultural biodiversity for agroecological intensification, sustainable farming systems and efficient ecosystem services reviewed, understood and shared among participants
• Approaches, protocols, methodologies and practices shared, reviewed and improvements suggested
• Priority areas for research collaboration and actions on conservation through use of agricultural biodiversity identified and recommended.

The four sessions will deal with

1. Overview of status, issues, challenges and opportunities for use and management of agricultural biodiversity in agroecological intensification
2. Use of genetic diversity to manage biotic and abiotic stresses to intensify production systems under environmental change
3. Deployment of agricultural biodiversity in sustainable farming systems and production landscapes for better ecosystem services
4. Custodian farmers: the role of local knowledge, gender and culture in managing agricultural biodiversity for resilient farming systems and agricultural landscapes

Organized by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Bioversity International and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)

Click here for a flyer and read more about the symposium

The gathering provided a context in which tribal people could share wider concerns about environmental sustainability, political sovereignty and preservation of traditional culture, further to interact with other conclave participants from the position of specialists and experts in their own field.

The report can be downloaded clicking on this link “Of Food, Culture and Identity” (pdf, 14 MB)
!! Please note that this is a heavy file and we will replace it with a web version as soon as we receive a low resolution one!!

For more information on Mahabaleshwar Conclave visit www.savethewesternghats.org

Issue 29.3 of Farming Matters will focus on the role of education in changing the mindsets of rural communities. We seek contributions that describe innovative education in rural areas. Who are involved? What is being taught? What teaching methods are used? What lessons are learned? And what makes these experiences valuable?

We will also look at how educators prepare themselves for their job in a fast changing world, what their aspirations are, how the education system supports and how they connect with different stakeholders in the agricultural system, such as farmers and other value chain actors, fellow educators, researchers and policy makers.

Read more about it here

Articles for the September issue of Farming Matters should be sent to Jorge Chavez-Tafur, editor, before June 1st, 2013. E-mail: j.chavez-tafurATileia.org

Deadline for submitting abstracts is 10 May

Abstracts for oral and poster presentations are invited on the below topics:

• Global and local analyses of food security
• Enabling policies for local and global food security
• Sustainable intensification of food production systems
• Novel ways of feeding 9 billion
• Learning from the past to understand the future
• Land sparing, land sharing and trade-offs
• Agricultural production as feedstock for renewables
• Lost harvest and wasted food
• Nutritional security
• Labelling, certifying and striving for quality and sustainability of food production

Go to http://globalfoodsecurityconference.com/ for more information on the conference and the online submission form.

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Sarah Doornbos
Knowledge Officer – Oxfam Novib and Hivos Knowledge Programme
www.hivos.net