What exactly is biodiversity?

The word biodiversity comes from combining words ‘biological’ and ‘diversity’.

It means all the variety of life on earth. Not just all the different plant and animal species, like dogs and apples, but the variations within each species, like beagles and Golden Delicious apples. In fact, it also refers to the variety that exists between individual beagles, or between individual Golden Delicious. There’s lot of biodiversity out there. And that’s good.

Agricultural biodiversity is the genetic variety in plants and animals that we grow for food and fiber. The genetic materials that we use to develop new breeds and varieties are called genetic resources.

OK, so now that you know so much, why don’t you take our little biodiversity quiz.

Why is agricultural biodiversity important?

OK, but why bother to protect our biodiversity? Fair question. Here’s the answer.

Fewer genetic resources mean fewer opportunities for growth and innovation in agriculture. And growth and innovation are exactly what we need if agricultural production is going to keep up with population growth. If our food supply can’t evolve, then we may be in big trouble.

Losing biodiversity doesn’t just limit our opportunities for growth; it puts our food supply in jeopardy. Agriculture becomes less able to adapt to environmental changes, such as global warming or the appearance of new pests and diseases. If our current food supply can’t adapt to changes in the environment, then we may be in really big trouble.

It’s extremely important for us to protect these resources and make sure they are used in a sustainable way. Helping countries preserve and make the best use of their biodiversity is one of FAO’s primary areas of work.

It is the world’s farmers who are the most responsible for preserving the Earth’s agricultural biodiversity. And not just rich farmers; even the world’s poorest farmers are playing a huge role in preserving and developing the world’s stock of genetic resources. But the work they do hasn’t always been properly recognized. Find out about how FAO is working to protect farmers’ rights.

What’s the risk?

Unfortunately, we have lost a lot of biodiversity in the last few decades. The drive for increased agricultural production and profit has created a reliance on a limited number of high-yielding crop varieties and animal breeds. This is another legacy of the “green revolution”.

Find out more information about the “green revolution”.

Instead of planting a wide variety of different crops like in the past, many farmers have concentrated on growing a single cash crop. This is called monoculture and it has lead to heavy losses in the world’s agricultural biodiversity.

Monoculture crops are often hybrid varieties of a traditional species. The improved variety produces more, so the farmer doesn’t bother planting the older variety and it slowly disappears. Also, farmers on traditional farms tended to grow a wide variety of crops and often raised livestock as well. With the advent of monoculture farming, traditional farming practices were largely abandoned. Many crop varieties and animal breeds have often simply allowed to disappear. This disappearance is known as “extinction”, and it’s final.

But biodiversity is being lost not just on the world’s farms. Forests are perhaps the most important storehouses of biological diversity, but every year we lose thousands of hectares of forest cover.

The world’s oceans, lakes and rivers are teeming with life, but over-fishing and environmentally damaging fishing practices are threatening aquatic biodiversity, too.

FAO works with its Member Nations to protect all the world’s genetic resources.

FAO loves worms!

Worms are hard workers. In fact, so are all the insects, bacteria, microbes, fungi and other organisms living underground. They’re busy dealing with each other in lots of complex and mysterious ways. Thanks to their silent, steady work the soil is made fertile and farmers can grow food. So come on everybody! Let’s hear it for creepy, crawly bugs in the soil! Let’s hear it for soil biodiversity!

But really, protecting soil biodiversity is serious business. Chemical pesticides and fertilizers and excessive tilling of the soil can kill many of the living things in the soil. Farming that doesn’t respect and harness soil biodiversity is not sustainable.

One way FAO is protecting soil biodiversity is by promoting conservation agriculture. Find out more about conservation agriculture.