Mainstreaming Agricultural Biodiversity in Traditional Production Landscapes for Sustainable Development: The Indian Scenario

Mainstreaming biodiversity in production landscapes ensures conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity, the key objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the projects supported by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Global Environment Facility (GEF). Mainstreaming integrates biodiversity in existing or new programs and policies, both cross-sectoral and sector-specific. The conventional model of agricultural production with limited diversity in production systems and use of high chemical input has taught us a valuable lesson as it is adversely impacting the environment, the essential ecosystem services, the soil health and the long term sustainability of our food systems. Using a qualitative participant observation approach, our study investigated four distinct traditional Indian production landscapes to gage (i) the farming communities’ response to institutional policies, programs and agricultural biodiversity-related activities in traditional Indian production landscapes and (ii) opportunities and challenges for sustainable development in smallholder traditional Indian farming systems. Results indicate that the top-down decision-making regime is the least effective towards achieving sustainable development in traditional Indian farming landscapes and that farmers’ experiential knowledge on participatory biodiversity management, maintenance and use for sustainable development are of critical importance to India’s agriculture and economy. Reclaiming agriculture’s spiritual roots through organic farming and locally grown food emerged as key, including the need for designing and implementing a more sovereign food system. Revisiting traditional smallholder farming under the COVID-19 pandemic and lessons learned for repurposing India’s agricultural policy are also highlighted.