Like the Roman god Janus, whose two faces look in opposite directions, agriculture can either protect the planet’s biodiversity, or decimate it with the irrational use of chemical inputs and the reduction of soil fertility.
If you’re gonna quote Janus at me, you better be using decimate correctly too. At first blush IPS’s interview with Achim Steiner — head of UNEP — seems to be toeing the old “agriculture is the enemy of biodiversity” party line. On second blush too. Here’s Steiner:
The increasing importance of agriculture caused by a growing global population means that the spaces vital to many species of flora and fauna are increasingly limited. In that sense, agriculture poses a danger to biodiversity.
In the end, though, he gets to the point I hope he was trying to make all along.
We can stop that process of erosion and annihilation of species if we apply other models to make optimal use of those 20 centimetres of the earth’s crust necessary to produce the food that we need.
With those alternative models, agriculture offers great potential for protecting plants and animals.
Farmers can be excellent managers of natural resources and of different ecosystems. The challenge of this century is how to compensate farmers so that they continue producing the necessary goods for humanity and, at the same time, help conserve and protect ecosystems, which are also crucial for our survival.
The interview swings back and forth a few more times, offering the idea that farmers can protect endangered flora and fauna. But not a word about the need to protect endangered wild relatives, or crops, or livestock. Ho hum.
