CONSERVATION

INTRODUCTION
What is Food Biodiversity and Why Does It Matter?
Gary Paul Nabhan, Kellogg Endowed Chair in Sustainable Food
Systems and founder, Renewing America’s Food Traditions
ALTHOUGH the term biodiversity was not even coined until 1985, the
more particular term food biodiversity now helps us describe the cornucopia of
distinctive kinds of fruits, nuts, vegetables, tubers, greens, herbs and oilseeds that
we intuitively associate with flavor, nutrition, food security, abundance and health.
In a broad sense, the actual number of food varieties that we eat is but a fraction
of the total agricultural biodiversity on farms and ranches required to assure that
food crops and livestock are fed, protected from winds or floods, and supplied
with adequate water, forage, nutrients, pollinators and other beneficial insects to
assure a harvest. As noted in the book Where Our Food Comes From, “Agricultural
biodiversity is embedded in every bite of food we eat, and in every field, orchard,
garden, ranch and fish pond that provide us with sustenance and with natural
values not fully recognized. It includes the cornucopia of crop seeds and livestock
breeds that have been largely domesticated by indigenous stewards to meet their
nutritional and cultural needs, as well as the many wild species that interact with
them in food-producing habitats. Such domesticated resources cannot be divorced
from their caretakers. These caretakers have also cultivated traditional knowledge
about how to grow and process foods; such local and indigenous knowledge—
just like the seeds it has shaped--is the legacy of countless generations of farming,
herding and gardening cultures.”
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