Bedrock of food security destroyed

Ecosystem destruction by human activities has reduced plant varieties and other life — and the ability to survive

Continue destroying plants, animals and insects at this rate and we will put “the future of our food system under severe threat”. This stark warning comes from the world’s first comprehensive analysis of the state of our biodiversity.

A 579-page report by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), State of the World’s Biodiversity and Food for Agriculture, looks at research into biodiversity in 91 countries.

In 1900, 1.6-billion people lived on Earth. That number is now near eight billion and is expected to hit 10-billion by 2050. The FAO is tasked with working out how this many people can be sustainably fed.

Biodiversity — a variety of plant and animal species living in their natural environment — is the bedrock of the world’s food system. The organisation’s report dives into this system and looks at how collapsing biodiversity is affecting how much food we can produce.

In the introduction, the FAO’S director general, José Graziano da Silva, warns that it is “deeply concerning” that biodiversity and ecosystems are “in decline” in so many of the countries.

“The foundations of our food systems are being undermined, often, at least in part, because of the impact of management practices and land-use changes associated with food and agriculture,” he writes.

Biodiversity is what allows life on the planet to survive shocks. It’s why the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs didn’t kill all life, because there were other living things that survived the changing environment. It also allows the food that people rely on to evolve to survive droughts and floods.

But modern human civilisation, since the agricultural revolution 12000 years ago, has been built on destroying this biodiversity in favour of a select few species. Just nine plant species now account for 66% of all crop production (sugar cane, maize, rice, wheat, potatoes, soybeans, oil-palm fruit, sugar beet and cassava) and a handful of animals make up the livestock market (cattle, sheep, pigs and chicken).

The UN report identifies three broad trends as destroying biodiversity: climate change, which causes habitats to disappear; pollution, which kills species; and people clearing and burning natural vegetation to make space for homes and farms. This wipes out

Seeds of destruction: Wheat is one of the nine plant species that account for 66% of crop production worldwide — and, like the other eight, its widespread production by agribusinesses is partly responsible for the destruction of biodiversity. Photo: Ilya Naymushin/reuters