Food biodiversity
Biodiversity provides high variety of food: crops, livestock, forestry, and fish, which are important food source of human species. A wide range of species provides many thousands of food products, such as, fruits, vegetables, nuts, meat, and food additives in form of food colourings, flavourings and preseratives, through agriculture and from the harvest of natural populations. 'Food biodiversity' is defined as "the diversity of plants, animals and other organisms used for food",[1] covering the genetic resources within species, between species and provided by ecosystems.
Food biodiversity and nutrition
Promoting diversity of foods and species consumed in human diets in particular has potential co-benefits for public health as well as sustainable food systems perspective.
Food biodiversity provides necessary nutrients for quality diets and is essential part of local food systems, cultures and food security. Promoting diversity of foods and species consumed in human diets in particular has potential co-benefits for sustainable food systems. Nutritionally, diversity in food is associated with higher micronutrient adequacy of diets.[2] On average, per additional species consumed, mean adequacy of vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, calcium, iron, and zinc increased by 3%. From a conservation point of view, diets based on a wide variety of species place less pressure on single species.
Productivity
Conservation and management of broad-based genetic diversity within the domesticated species have been improving agricultural production for 10,000 years. However, diverse natural populations have been providing food and other products for much longer. High Biodiversity can maximize the production levels, which is sustained through beneficial impact of ecosystem services for agricultural, modified and natural ecosystems.
Tomato
Wild subspecies of tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum chmielewskii) were crossbred with cultivated tomato species. After 10 generations, new tomato strains with larger fruits were produced. There was a marked increase in pigmentation. The content of soluble solid, mainly fructose, glucose and other sugars increased.[3]
Barley
A barley plant from Ethiopia provides a gene that protects the barley crop from the lethal yellow dwarf virus.[4]
Rice
Host resistance gene, Xa21,from Oryza longistaminata is integrated into the genome of Oryza sativa for a broad range resistance to rice blight disease caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae [5]
Maintenance of Food Production
A wide range of biologically diverse populations in natural ecosystems and in / near agricultural ecosystems maintain essential ecological functions that are critical for the production of food. Such populations contribute positively to, for example, nutrient cycling, decomposition of organic matter, crusted or degraded soil rehabilitation, pest and disease regulation, water quality maintenance, and pollination. Maintaining species diversity, while building on and enhancing ecosystem functions, reduces external input requirements by increasing nutrient availability, improving water use and soil structure, and controlling pests.
Change in biodiversity in human diets
Since 1961, human diets across the world have become more diverse in the consumption of major commodity staple crops, with a corollary decline in consumption of local or regionally important crops, and thus have become more homogeneous globally.[6] The differences between the foods eaten in different countries were reduced by 68% between 1961 and 2009. The modern "global standard"[6] diet contains an increasingly large percentage of a relatively small number of major staple commodity crops, which have increased substantially in the share of the total food energy (calories), protein, fat, and food weight that they provide to the world's human population, including wheat, rice, sugar, maize, soybean (by +284%[7]), palm oil (by +173%[7]), and sunflower (by +246%[7]). Whereas nations used to consume greater proportions of locally or regionally important crops, wheat has become a staple in over 97% of countries, with the other global staples showing similar dominance worldwide. Other crops have declined sharply over the same period, including rye, yam, sweet potato (by -45%[7]), cassava (by -38%[7]), coconut, sorghum (by -52%[7]) and millets (by -45%[7]).[6][7][8]
New Crops and Biodiversity
Very small proportion of plant species have been the food source on a large scales. Relying on too few species of crops and animals is a threat to the survival of Human. It is illustrated by the Great Irish Potato Famine. Potatoes were introduced into Ireland from the New World in about 1600 and it became the major food source of most of the Irish people eventually. The wind-borne Potato blight fungus spread throughout the country In 1845-1847. and caused almost complete failure of the potato crop. It is estimated that 1 million people died of starvation, cholera and typhoid.[9]
New crops are being found in the rest of plant species to widen the diversity of food source, which avoid to rely on few species too much.
Geographic patterns of biodiversity and food
In 2016, researchers linked the centers and primary regions of diversity ("areas typically including the locations of the initial domestication of crops, encompassing the primary geographical zones of crop variation generated since that time, and containing relatively high species richness in crop wild relatives") of food and agricultural crops with their current importance around the world in modern national food supplies and agricultural production. The results indicated that countries are highly interconnected with regard to primary regions of diversity of the crops they cultivate and/or consume. Foreign crops (crops entirely from regions of diversity outside the location of the country) were extensively used in food supplies (68.7% of national food supplies as a global mean were derived from foreign crops) and production systems (69.3% of crops grown were foreign). Foreign crop usage was shown to have increased significantly over the past 50 years, including in countries with high indigenous crop diversity.[10]
See also
References
- ^ FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) and Bioversity International (2017). Guidelines on Assessing Biodiverse Foods in Dietary Intake Surveys. Rome, Italy: FAO. p. 2. ISBN 978-92-5-109598-0.
- ^ Lachat, Carl; Raneri, Jessica E.; Walker Smith, Katherine; Kolsteren, Patrick; Van Damme, Patrick; Verzelen, Kaat; Penafiel, Daniela; Vanhove, Wouter; Kennedy, Gina; Hunter, Danny; Oduor Odhiambo, Francis; Ntandou-Bouzitou, Gervais; De Baets, Bernard; Ratnasekera, Disna; The Ky, Hoang; Remans, Roseline; Termote, Celine (2017). "Dietary species richness as a measure of food biodiversity and nutritional quality of diets". PNAS. doi:10.1073/pnas.1709194115.
- ^ H.H.Iltis (1988). "Serendipity in the Exploration of Biodiversity." In: E. O. Wilson, editor. Biodiversity. National Academy Press. 98-105.
- ^ M.J.Plotkin. 1988. The Outlook for New Agricultural and Industrial Products from the Tropics. In: E.O. Wilson, Editor. Biodiversity. National Academy Press
- ^ Rice Genetics Newsletter, Vol. 20: Evaluation of durable resistance of transgenic hybrid maintainer line IR58025B for bacterial blight disease of rice
- ^ a b c Khoury, C.K.; Bjorkman, A.D.; Dempewolf, H.; Ramirez-Villegas, J.; Guarino, L.; Jarvis, A.; Rieseberg, L.H.; Struik, P.C. (2014). "Increasing homogeneity in global food supplies and the implications for food security". PNAS. 111 (11): 4001–4006. doi:10.1073/pnas.1313490111. PMC 3964121. PMID 24591623.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Kinver, Mark. "Crop diversity decline 'threatens food security'". BBC. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
- ^ Fischetti, Mark. "Diets around the world are becoming more similar". Scientific American. p. 72. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
- ^ Values Of Biodiversity Archived January 17, 2012, at Archive-It
- ^ Khoury, C.K.; Achicanoy, H.A.; Bjorkman, A.D.; Navarro-Racines, C.; Guarino, L.; Flores-Palacios, X.; Engels, J.M.M.; Wiersema, J.H.; Dempewolf, H.; Sotelo, S.; Ramírez-Villegas, J.; Castañeda-Álvarez, N.P.; Fowler, C.; Jarvis, A.; Rieseberg, L.H.; Struik, P.C. (2016). "Origins of food crops connect countries worldwide". Proc. R. Soc. B. 283 (1832): 20160792. doi:10.1098/rspb.2016.0792.