Biodiversity for Food & Health Security in the Anthropocene
When humanity is going through an unprecedented crisis, providing food and health for all become the most challenging task for all nations. Despite the huge strides in food production, there are some 820 million people still undernourished and this number has spiked up as a result of the pandemic. Feeding this growing number with healthy diets and with minimum environmental impact should be possible if we can transform our food system. Food can be produced and consumed with zero expansion into natural ecosystems and zero manmade species extinction if there ‘strong and coordinated governance of land and oceans” (Lancet Commission 2019). Unfortunately, the destruction of natural ecosystems and species extinction for the last 50 years became an all-time high in human history! The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) estimated that one million species are threatened with extinction!
The M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation since its inception in 1990 has actively been engaged in promoting conservation, sustainable and equitable use of biodiversity of the food production system, or Agricultural Biodiversity. In 2010, MSSRF established a Botanic Garden in about 10 ha in Wayanad district- the hottest hotspot of Biodiversity in the Western Ghats with the active partnership of tribal community and farmers. The purpose of the new Garden is to promote integrated conservation of farmers’ varieties, wild edibles, crop wild relatives, medicinal plants and other plant foods of local value.
I invite your kind attention to the information provided in this Newsletter, which illustrates the efforts of this Garden to promote conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. I am requesting you to partner with us by being a premium investor in this project to protect the diversity and richness of all living organisms in the food production landscapes of the Western Ghats.
M. S. Swaminathan
22-05-2020