Sustainable Agriculture Literature Review - Boulder County

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8.1 Food Security
As identified by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) “Agricultural biodiversity
encompasses the variety and variability of plants, animals and microorganisms at
genetic, species and ecosystem levels, which are necessary to sustain key functions in
the agro-ecosystem, its structures and processes for, and in support of, food production
and food security.” 630 Agricultural biodiversity therefore includes not only a wide variety
of species and genetic resources, but also the many ways in which farmers can exploit
biological diversity to produce and manage crops, land, water insects, and biota. This
also includes habitats and species outside farming systems that can benefit agriculture
and enhance ecosystem functions. 631
There are several distinctive features of agricultural biodiversity, compared to other
632, 633
components of biodiversity:
! Agricultural biodiversity is actively managed by farmers.
! Many components of agricultural biodiversity would not survive without
human management.
! Agricultural biodiversity includes providing the building blocks for the
evolution or deliberate breeding of useful new crop varieties and the
sustainable production of food and other agricultural products.
Developments in agriculture over the last 40 years brought significant increases in global
production, due in part to both the expansion of cropland and changes in technologies.
With these developments, concerns have risen about the degradation of biodiversity in
and around agricultural land. The erosion of agricultural biodiversity is impacted in many
different ways and on many different levels, both within farming systems and off farms in
natural habitats. As identified in a study from the World Resource Institute, Linking
Biodiversity and Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Food
Security, “effective approaches to the conservation of agricultural biodiversity within a
general framework of sustainable agriculture have to merge the goals of productivity,
food security, and social equity. 634
Genetic Resources
Worldwide, about 7,000 different types of plants are consumed, but of these only about
150 are commercially important, with three crops – rice, wheat, and corn – accounting
for 60 percent of calories. The increasing genetic uniformity in agriculture is a concern
among researchers because of the increased vulnerability to such things as plant
disease and weather resistance. 635 The potato blight in Ireland is an historical example
of increased vulnerability associated with genetic uniformity. 636 This trend of
monoculture farming (the growing of a single crop species on a field year after year) is
unique to the developed world since many of the farms in less developed countries have
more plant diversity due to polyculture and agroforestry practices. Traditional
agriculture, which utilizes polycultures, more closely resembles natural ecosystems and
can reduce the risk of insect and disease infestations. In some places, these polycrop
systems provide the majority of food in that area. For example, in Latin America, 70-90
percent of beans are grown in the same space as maize, potatoes, and other crops. 637
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