One of the biggest worries relating to the food and farming system at world level has been that in recent decades the diversity of crops being grown on the fields of farmers has declined to an alarming extent. The diversity of crops has decreased and in addition the diversity of varieties of crops has decreased even more and their genetic base has become narrower.

Earlier the crop diversity had evolved over a period of over ten thousand years on farms and for much longer in nature. Apart from nature’s bounty or gift, efforts and experience and wisdom of hundreds of generations of farmers had contributed to this diversity in the form of thousands of varieties and cultivars of many crops. What had evolved or had been created over thousands of years has been lost on a massive scale on the farms of farmers over a period of just a few decades.

This trend is deeply worrying due to a number of reasons. The varieties which have been lost rapidly had existed precisely because these were useful in providing particular types of foods and other useful materials, or were suitable for growing in some special environmental conditions, or were resistant to some troublesome pests and diseases, or were of use in other ways. Their loss is not just an immediate loss or a one-time loss, but would adversely affect the ability of future generations to grow several useful and cherished kinds of food and what is more, protect their crops from adverse weather or from disease and pests. In times of climate change greater diversity of crops was needed to cope with new challenges, but the disturbing trends have moved in the opposite direction.

The official response nationally and internationally to this crisis situation has been to create gene banks or similar establishments in which germplasm can be kept in protected lab conditions under the care of various government and international institutions but also increasingly under the control of several big corporate interests and powerful multinational companies who are more likely to use these collections for increasing their profits and power.

In this way what was once the heritage of farmers and indeed of all humanity in free conditions, available on the fields of tens of millions of farmers all over the world, has increasingly become concentrated in conditions in which there are increasing chances of this being used more for increasing profits and power of a few.       

In addition it has been increasingly realized that farm biodiversity cannot really be protected just in lab conditions as this is a very fragile and uncertain protection which can be endangered by several mistakes, flaws and accidental factors. The best way to ensure the protection of farm biodiversity is to save it on the fields of farmers.

Hence it has been increasingly emphasized by several experts as well as by social and farmers’ movements that the focus should shift to creating enabling and encouraging conditions in which farm biodiversity can be saved on the fields of farmers in ways that are highly creative and involving for farming communities, just as these had always been for thousands of years before the disruptions of recent decades arrived.

If farm biodiversity is saved on the farms of ordinary farmers, then this means that this becomes accessible to all farmers and people just as it should be and just as it was in times of our ancestors who had contributed so much to this farm biodiversity (as against the experience of fast decline of farm biodiversity in recent times). However to ensure the realization of farm biodiversity being a common heritage, it is important also to ensure that laws and plant patents do not become a barrier to this.

This becomes a more complex issue as in recent decades powerful forces have been working to spread narrow laws and patents, or systems similar to this. This is a very important aspect of the adverse changes in recent times which have threatened the entire concept of free growth of farm biodiversity as a common heritage of humankind without any disruption from narrow interests guided by profit and control.

While abundant genetic diversity on farms had earlier always been seen as a sign of wellness, what happened in the course of the so-called ‘green revolution’ was that exotic varieties with a narrow genetic base were promoted by powerful forces with the aim of increasing at a very fast pace the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, while at the same time a very false message was spread that the traditional diversity of crops and their many, many varieties was a sign of backwardness. Although this was done in the name of increasing yields, the traditional varieties that were already giving high yields even without high doses of chemical fertilizers were ignored and phased out. As has subsequently become very clear, the yield increases promised by the green revolution proved to be an illusion or a big exaggeration, or came with so many other adverse factors (harm caused to soil, water, environment being only some of these) as to deny any overall beneficial impact. Thus we had an utterly absurd and tragic situation of the heritage of a vast diversity of crop varieties suited to local conditions and evolved by hundreds of generations of farmers being rudely displaced by exotic varieties heralding expensive farming promoted by agribusiness interests, and all this being applauded as a big development achievement.

The matter did no end here. This was followed by the promotion of plant patents and ‘intellectual property rights’. While the concept of patents being applied to plants had initially appeared absurd to people more used to thinking of plant diversity as a common heritage, with immense resources being poured in by powerful forces to take forward patent-based thinking this soon began dominating the discourse in the seeds sector. As a result, the task of saving farm biodiversity on the farms of ordinary farmers with a perspective that they and all people are involved in both protecting and sharing a common heritage of humanity has become more and more difficult. Instead the forces of profits and control are increasing their grip on the seeds sector.

It is in these difficult conditions that we must proclaim the commitment to two most important objectives. Firstly, farm biodiversity must definitely be saved as a big priority and it must be saved on the fields of farmers (while publicly owned gene banks can play a supportive role). Secondly, all farm biodiversity must be seen as a common heritage of humankind, of all farmers and of all people, to be freely shared, exchanged, grown, saved, conserved, celebrated.

All those who are working in this direction and to take forward this objective are doing a great service to humanity and to farming and farm biodiversity. However some of them are able to come only half-way as they feel the need to make some compromises. They should also come forward in a more public-spirited way to take up what is most needed in the present difficult conditions.

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Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/reviving-farm-biodiversity-protecting-rights-farmers/5901096