Crop diversity can also deliver important ecosystem benefits. Varieties that are tolerant to drought and flood can not only increase productivity, but also can prevent soil erosion and desertification. In southern Ghana, for example, farmers have managed to reduce crop failures arising from rainfall variability and unpredictability by cultivating several drought-tolerant types of the same crop species.
In addition, crop diversification has reduced the need for costly and environmentally damaging pesticides.
So I am convinced that we should raise the profile of biodiversity in tackling climate change and food insecurity, and that we need more high-level attention to this subject.
We need for food security what the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel has done for climate change: a science-based red-alert system for the planet. And at the start of a new five-year term at the European Commission, I will continue to do all I can to promote this important issue.
But even the best and most up-to-date donor policies will remain vain exercises if governments in developed countries fail to translate their commitments into hard cash and improvements in agricultural investment worldwide.
Jose Manuel Barroso is president of the European Commission.COPYRIGHT: PROJECT SYNDICATE
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