An integrated production and pest management trainer showing a farmer how to loosen the soil around young cabbage plants @FAO/Olivier Asselin

HARARE, 10 June 2022 - Agricultural biodiversity is a vital subset of biodiversity that underpins the provision of food, feed, fibre, fuel and medicine. It includes the ecosystems within which crops, trees, livestock and fish are grown, kept and harvested. The global loss of biodiversity in the agricultural landscape has reached unprecedented levels, leading to low productivity, emerging pests and diseases, and decreasing production capacities of natural agro-ecosystems. 

There is growing evidence that over-exploitation and over-harvesting of natural resources, pollution, overuse of external synthetic inputs and changes in land and water management activities are drivers that negatively impact biodiversity within agricultural landscapes. Such evidence, also partially links the causes of biodiversity loss to inappropriate and unsustainable agricultural practices. The enigma that the agricultural sector depends heavily on biodiversity and its components for its functioning, is not a myth nor a mystery but is a reality.

“There is a need to create policies and regulatory frameworks that safeguard, manage and restore agrobiodiversity and its related agroecosystem services in the agriculture sector,” said Dorcas Tawonashe, Deputy Director, under the Department of Strategic Planning and Business Development in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development (MoLAFWRD). 

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) with the support of the Government of Zimbabwe has embarked on policy development processes that aim to create an enabling policy environment that mainstreams biodiversity in the agriculture sector. The grand goal is to develop an agro-biodiversity and agroecosystems services policy framework. The framework will strengthen the conservation, sustainable use, governance, institutions and finance and investment models that promote agrobiodiversity and agro-ecosystems management. The policy development process is being implemented under the European Union (EU) funded Capacity Building Related to Multilateral Environmental Agreements in Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific Countries – Phase III (ACP-MEAs 3) project. 

“FAO is committed to supporting the Government of Zimbabwe to strengthen its agricultural policies to sustain and account for agrobiodiversity and its related agro-ecosystems in the food and agriculture production systems. Through this project, FAO will facilitate and provide technical guidance to the government of Zimbabwe throughout the policy formulation cycle,” said  Kudzai Kusena, FAO National Project Coordinator speaking on behalf of Patrice Talla, FAO Subregional Coordinator for Southern Africa and FAO Representative to Zimbabwe.

FAO in partnership with the MoLAFWRD through the Department of Strategic Planning and Business Development (SPBD), and the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry (MECTHI) partnered to specifically embark on developing a policy framework to transform the agricultural sector to conserve and manage agrobiodiversity and agro-ecosystem services sustainably. From 7 – 9 June 2022, FAO and the ACP-MEAs3 Policy Development thematic working group under the SPBD Department met in Mashonaland Central province to plan and map processes required to develop agrobiodiversity and agroecosystems management framework. The team was brainstorming on policy issues, policy options, strategies, action plans, financing mechanisms and institutional frameworks that are critical to mainstream biodiversity into the agricultural sector. 

‘The process of policy formulation provides a framework on which strategies and plans are implemented to mainstream biodiversity into the fabric of agricultural production. I envisage this process to lead to the development of a biodiversity policy framework that firmly addresses issues of agrobiodiversity. The policy should be predicated on the commitments that the government of Zimbabwe has already made,” said Professor Arnold Mashingaidze from the Chinhoyi University of Technology, Co-Chair in the ACP-MEAs3 Research and Development working group. 

“Agro-biodiversity is a component of biodiversity that is critical for the agricultural sector which is one of the major contributors to the national GDP. The agro-biodiversity policy will stimulate action for the whole of society to take necessary interventions to conserve agro-biodiversity and ensure that it is used sustainably,” said Beavan Ngoshi, Environment Officer at MECTHI, the ministry responsible for coordinating the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Zimbabwe.

The MoLAFWRD and MECTHI are set to develop an agrobiodiversity and agro-ecosystems services policy framework. This will be achieved by conducting a series of provincial and national consultative and validation workshops to develop and adopt the issues paper. The issues paper will lead to the development, consultations and validation of policy options, strategies and action plans that mainstream biodiversity into agriculture production.