Tag: Agrobiodiversity

Local foods are still at the heart of rural diets in Bone and Timor Tengah Selatan, Indonesia

Key messages

  • Indonesia’s dietary transition and persistent malnutrition make it important to examine the continuing role of local foods in supporting healthier rural diets in Indonesia.
  • The study found that local foods remain central to diets in rural Bone and Timor Tengah Selatan (TTS), especially nutrient-rich foods such as vegetables, fruits, legumes, meat and poultry products and fish.
  • However, traditional staples such as maize, tubers, sorghum and sago remain underutilized, with staple consumption increasingly dominated by rice.
  • In both Bone and TTS, food delocalization is not yet dominant, but is emerging in specific food groups, including imported rice and industrially processed sugar in TTS and palm oil, dairy and processed foods in both Bone and TTS.
  • The study identified 146 local foods in Bone and 90 in TTS currently consumed by local communities. It also documented 61 local foods in Bone and 101 in TTS with strong potential to improve dietary diversity and rural food system resilience through initiatives such as Local Food-based Dietary Guidelines, kitchen gardens, school feeding, Posyandu menus and nutrition campaigns.

Regenerative agriculture field manual for agricultural extension workers and farmers in Semi-Arid and Coastal Tanzania

This field manual is a practical resource designed to guide the implementation of regenerative agriculture in Tanzania’s semiarid and coastal zones. Developed through participatory assessments, validated field practices, and research by ICRAF, IITA, and partners, it aims to restore degraded farmland and landscapes while enhancing climate resilience, agrobiodiversity, and productivity.
Organized into user-friendly modules, the manual blends theory with practical steps, visual tools, and checklists. Each module covers technology descriptions, site selection, input requirements, management protocols, and monitoring tips. The manual equips field staff, extension workers, and community facilitators with the technical knowledge and skills to design and implement context-specific regenerative technology packages.

Climate-Smart Agroforestry for Sustainable Landscapes and Agri-Food Systems’ Transformation in Nepal

Increasing demand for food and non-food products by a growing population accompanied by shrinking area of agricultural land—with 17% abandoned or underutilized—has challenged sustainable agricultural development in Nepal. Yet agriculture, which occupies 24.2% of the land area, contributes 23.9% to GDP, engaging two-thirds of the population. Agricultural practices often combine forestry activities across landscapes, forming agroforestry systems. Application of an innovative, climate-smart agroforestry (CSAF) approach to agricultural landscapes can produce a wide range of ecosystem goods and services. A wide range of policy instruments have made clear provisions for utilizing abandoned and marginal land through agroforestry practices that contribute to climate and livelihood goals. However, abandonment of agricultural land is ever-increasing owing to low productivity, out-migration and lack of labor, off-farm income sources and enhanced purchasing power, unscientific land management policies, rugged terrain and harsh climatic conditions, invasive plants and land fragmentation. We recommend policy and institutional reforms through the development of a national roadmap based on a nexus approach to support land-sector policies and priorities, such as strengthening climate and agricultural information services; conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity through site-specific crops in CSAF; development of value chains of CSAF products in partnership with the larger private sector; subsidies and safety nets for resource-poor smallholding and marginalized farmers; building capacity in CSAF technologies and practices; provision of infrastructure and other facilities for commercial CSAF; establishing CSAF as wildlife corridors; and research into the full set of ecosystem services, including carbon and ecotourism, provided by CSAF. This will not only support the agri-food sector but also contribute to climate, livelihood and development goals. This chapter presents the authors’ perspectives on the key challenges facing the agricultural sector and, particularly, the agroforestry sub-sector, and recommends ways for maximizing economic, social and environmental benefits from a CSAF approach.

Opportunity for conserving and utilizing agro-biodiversity through agroforestry in Southern Africa

Traditional approaches to biodiversity conservation focused on protection of natural habitats in parks and reserves while neglecting the potential to conserve agrobiodiversity in farming systems that could provide other direct and indirect benefits necessary for livelihoods and ecosystem functioning. Quantitative assessments of tree biodiversity have mostly focused on traditional production systems such as shifting cultivation in the miombo ecozone, home gardens and the parkland systems; and to a lesser extent the below ground biodiversity with respect to micro flora and fauna as a function of soil fertility improvement. Agroforestry systems, in contrast to intensive monocultures, may provide high quality habitats for biodiversity conservation. In the case of trees on the landscape, the use of non-timber forest products as a livelihood strategy, particularly for food, nutrition, medicine and’safety net’ during lean periods, has been one of the drivers of biodiversity conservation. In southern Africa, research that has addressed biodiversity albeit indirectly include indigenous fruit tree domestication and the screening of multi-purpose tree germplasm for improved agroforestry systems and/or technologies. This paper highlights the state of knowledge on the contribution of agroforestry to agrobiodiversity in southern Africa. It draws on the huge body of data on the genetic diversity of agroforestry trees used to meet diverse livelihood needs including those used for soil fertility replenishment, provision of animal fodder, fruits, medicinal products and, fuelwood and timber.

Biodiversity and agrobiodiversity in Sri Lanka: village tank systems

The main feature of the ancient irrigation systems of Sri Lanka were intricate networks of small to gigantic reservoirs (wewa or tanks) connected through a series of feeder canals that brought water for year-long rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivation in the dry zone. Irrigation systems with large number of interconnected reservoirs have evolved since the third century bc. These ancient irrigation systems still function as a crucial element in supplying water for agriculture in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, and they constitute one of the richest sources of wetland biodiversity in the country. An intriguing feature of the tank systems is their sheer density: About 30,000 tanks have been built in a land area of about 40,000 km2 of the dry zone (Mendis 2003). The density and the long-term existence (more than 1,000 years in many cases) make these tanks an important component in the environment and ecosystems of the region.

Food biodiversity for healthy, diverse diets

One of the world’s greatest challenges is to secure universal access to sufficient, healthy and affordable food that is produced sustainably. Current nutrition trends do not reveal a situation in which populations are well nourished, and the sustainability of how we produce, distribute and consume food is also a subject of concern. Serious levels of both undernutrition and overweight/obesity are reported for 57 out of 129 countries (1). Two billion people are overweight or obese, while two billion people lack essential vitamins and minerals needed for adequate nutrition. Malnutrition in children, which is in part linked to insufficient diets, is the underlying cause of half of all deaths among under-fives (2). Often malnutrition extremes, such as stunting in children and overweight adults, occur concurrently. Countries experiencing multiple forms of malnutrition, including under-five stunting, anaemia in women of reproductive age and adult overweight, are considered the new normal (3). At the same time there is an alarmingly fast-paced increase in non-communicable diet-related diseases (e.g. diabetes, hypertension) (4). One of the principal causes of these multiple burdens of malnutrition is poor diet. Diet-related factors are now the number one risk factor of morbidity and mortality globally

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