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Sustainable agriculture

 
A young girl carries her brother. Seeds for Needs project in Ethiopia. Keywords: Seeds for Needs: Climate Change: Children: Please credit: Tsega Wolday/Bioversity International

Children in Ethiopia face an uncertain future. Will their agriculture sustain them? Photo T. Wolday/Bioversity.

There are many, many definitions of sustainability, each of which has something to recommend it. Perhaps the most useful is from The Brundtland Report (1997), which defines sustainable development as:

"Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

The United Nations Millennium Declaration in 2001 and the setting of the Millennium Development Goals to be achieved by 2015 have significantly increased awareness of poverty and hunger:

  • Goal No. 1 aims to halve the proportion of people suffering from hunger by 2015.
  • Goal No. 7 aims to reduce biodiversity loss and rates of deforestation, and requires a response to climate change.

The challenge remains to integrate the diverse levels and timescales of sustainable development to address the needs of people today while protecting the resources that will support life in the future.

Sustainable agriculture has to be cohesive at environmental, economic and socio-cultural levels. The work of Bioversity International supports all three aspects through projects that:

  • Assess and promote ex situ and in situ crop diversity
  • Investigate and integrate market forces
  • Support participatory plant breeding and cultural/dietary diversity.
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