{"id":596,"date":"2025-11-30T10:06:38","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T10:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polerani.bio\/?page_id=596"},"modified":"2026-02-06T08:50:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T08:50:31","slug":"bioraznoobrazie","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.polerani.bio\/en\/bioraznoobrazie\/","title":{"rendered":"Biodiversity"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\u0420\u0430\u0441\u0442\u0438\u0442\u0435\u043b\u043d\u043e\n\n\n\n

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Biodiversity is our living commons \u2013 the basis of life and the commons. We are part of nature, not its masters and owners; claiming intellectual property rights (patents) over life forms, living resources and living processes is an ethical, ecological and economic perversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agriculture is inherently a management of biodiversity, although in recent centuries it has been more of a struggle against it. Human activity to date has been unilaterally aimed at increasing yields, primarily by eliminating biodiversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diversity is an important component for ensuring the resilience of biological systems: it fosters the ability to adapt to change. In agriculture, resilience is essential to cope with ongoing climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, however, modern agro-industrial systems have developed around a vision of efficiency based on uniformity, production specialization and monocultures, at the expense of diversity and therefore adaptability and sustainability over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the approximately 750 plant species cultivated and consumed worldwide in recent centuries, only 30 species<\/strong> are now essential for production and only three (wheat, rice and maize) constitute the basis of human nutrition (FAO, 1997). Currently 12 plant species and 5 animal species meet 70%'s nutritional needs <\/strong>over 7 billion people. As a result of the expansion of agriculture, there is a massive impoverishment of species, reflected in: loss of habitat for species not supported by humans, extinction of species, reduction of genetic diversity in crop populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the mid-20th century, the combination of highly mechanized industrial agriculture, monoculture farming, and increased reliance on high-yield, homogeneous crops of the world\u2019s three most important crops\u2014wheat, rice, and corn\u2014has led to a 90% reduction in the genetic diversity of our food. Just five giant agribusiness corporations grow and sell 40% of all the seeds in the world. Their business model imposes the use of monocultures as the only solution to producing more food at the expense of biodiversity and innovation and small, local, and highly adaptable breeding. Relying on homogeneous, genetically limited crops grown as monocultures is a high-risk strategy. Just one pathogen can wipe out an entire crop because all the plants are identical and a weak spot in their genetic armor is easily exploited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biodiversity and agriculture are closely linked.<\/strong> Insect-friendly agricultural land, rich in food and providing shelter, increases food production. It is known that the less intensive the agriculture, the greater the diversity of plants and animals in the fields, attracting a multitude of birds, insects, etc. However, intensive production in a given area should not limit the biodiversity around it. We can talk about functional biodiversity for agriculture because it provides:<\/p>\n\n\n\n