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Workshop on Crop and Livestock Diversity for Climate Change Adaptation co-organized by BC3 in Rome
Expert meeting co-organized by Biodiversity International and Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) to be held in Rome 8-11 October 2013
"Crop and Livestock Diversity for Climate Change Adaptation: Review of Evidence Base and Identification of Research Priorities and Potential Uptake Pathways".
Crop and livestock biodiversity is both threatened by climate change and considered to be a crucial resource for adaptation and ensuring food security in the face of global economic and environmental challenges. Subsistence-based and natural resource-dependent societies are especially vulnerable to global drivers of disruption, including climate change. In such contexts, food security urgently needs to be strengthened by investing in the adaptability of food systems.
However, the largest investments in food production continue to be associated with agricultural innovations, often as part of packages that rely predominantly on breeding programs and artificial capital inputs, including agrochemicals and irrigation, to increase the productivity of some major crops and livestock, which are often advocated as crucial for agricultural climate change adaptation. Much less emphasis is being put on understanding the potential role of agricultural biodiversity in meeting this challenge, including the capacity of local systems that rely on existing natural, human and social capital assets such as biodiversity, traditional knowledge and informal institutions underpinning collective action to reduce vulnerability and contribute to adaptive capacity.
An assessment of the existing evidence base related to the contribution of crop and livestock biodiversity conservation and sustainable use to climate change adaptation, together with the identification of research gaps, may be expected to provide crucial information for informing the policy debate (as well as related donor dialogue) and providing an additional and strong argument in favour of the development and implementation of a strategic approach to on-farm agrobiodiversity conservation and sustainable use.
The objective of the meeting is to identify key research issues/questions for both crop and livestock diversity, undertake a gap analysis, map out areas for strategic future research (including for joint research) and identify strategies to facilitate donor dialogue and uptake pathways.
Programme crop and livestock diversity for climate change adaptation