“Biodiversity in food and agriculture is essential for food security, sustainable development and the provision of many vital ecosystem services. »
This is the message sent by Edward Mukiibi, president of Slow Food, on the occasion of the International Day for Biological Diversity, celebrated on May 22. Based on the theme From agreement to action: restoring biodiversity, chosen by the Convention on Biological Diversity following the conclusions of COP15, Edward Mukiibi continues: “Its restoration has become an emergency. Biodiversity enables agricultural systems to resist and overcome environmental shocks, pandemics and the climate crisis. It allows us to produce food with a lower impact on non-renewable resources, with fewer external inputs, and is essential to our survival. »
Slow Food is convinced that we can transform the current food system and make it more sustainable through agroecological practices, thus guaranteeing food security on a global scale. “As FAO’s State of Food Security in the World 2022 report shows, our efforts to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition are backsliding. The number of people affected by hunger globally reached 828 million in 2021, an increase of 46 million from 2020, and projections suggest that around 670 million people (8% of the population world) will still face hunger in 2030.
Slow Food and biodiversity
For more than 30 years, Slow Food has worked to defend the biodiversity that sustains our agriculture and our food production: plant varieties and species, animal breeds, useful insects, microorganisms, ecosystems, knowledge and cultures. It was one of the first organizations to draw attention to domestic biodiversity (cultivated varieties and livestock species) and the first to consider processing techniques and processed products (bread and cheese) as an integral part of our biodiversity heritage. “If we want to ensure good, clean and fair food for all, we must build on biodiversity and reverse the trend of this production model which continues to generate environmental and social disasters and destroy the foundations of food security for all. current generations and for those to come,” concludes Edward Mukiibi.
