HYDERABAD, India, Could 23 (IPS) – Dr Himanshu Pathak is Director Normal of The Worldwide Crops Analysis Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)Nowhere is that this extra obvious than on this planet’s drylands. Masking 41% of the Earth’s land floor, these areas are dwelling to over two billion folks and help 50% of the world’s livestock and 44% of its cultivated techniques (UNCCD). Removed from being marginal, drylands are central to international meals safety, biodiversity, and local weather resilience.
As local weather change intensifies and inhabitants progress amplifies useful resource calls for, these essential ecosystems face escalating threats. About 20-35% of drylands are already degraded, and as much as 45% of Africa’s drylands are affected by desertification—a disaster eroding biodiversity, weakening conventional agricultural techniques, and undermining livelihoods.
Agricultural homogenization has additionally taken a heavy toll: the FAO estimates that 75% of crop range has been misplaced during the last century, as conventional varieties give option to genetically uniform crops.
Biodiversity in Drylands: A Basis for Resilience
In dryland areas, biodiversity just isn’t an summary idea—it’s survival. These lands, among the many most severely affected by local weather change, host a wealth of extremely nutritious, underutilized crops, indigenous livestock breeds, conventional information, and ecosystems honed by millennia of adaptation. Preserving this organic wealth is crucial for dryland communities, but additionally for international sustainability.
The Worldwide Crops Analysis Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), headquartered in India and working throughout the drylands of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, has been working in shut collaboration with nationwide and worldwide companions for over 5 a long time to advance agricultural growth in concord with ecological stewardship. One in every of ICRISAT’s earliest and most enduring commitments has been to the conservation of crop range.
For the reason that Nineteen Seventies, the ICRISAT Genebank in Hyderabad has served as a world sanctuary for the wild and cultivated family of dryland crops akin to sorghum, pearl millet, chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, and small millets. At this time, as one of many 11 worldwide Genebanks below the CGIAR, the ICRISAT Genebank is a multi-crop facility conserving six of the 25 main crops safeguarded by CGIAR Genebanks.
As a signatory to the Worldwide Treaty on Plant Genetic Sources for Meals and Agriculture, ICRISAT has distributed practically 1.5 million seed samples to researchers throughout greater than 150 international locations. A essential operate of the Genebank is the repatriation of misplaced germplasm to international locations whose nationwide collections have been compromised by pure disasters, battle, or different disruptions.
Thus far, ICRISAT has restored over 55,000 accessions to 12 nationwide packages throughout Asia and Africa, with South Korea being the newest recipient.
Shared Heritage, Shared Duty
Preserving seeds in chilly storage is barely a part of the image, nonetheless.
True biodiversity conservation is dynamic—it lives within the palms of farmers and on the plates of shoppers.
It thrives when native communities in fragile environments are empowered to adapt to local weather change. It thrives with revived soils, and it nurtures life when sustainable water administration ensures year-round availability to help each livelihoods and ecosystems.
That is why, at ICRISAT—with over 5 a long time of expertise in fragile ecosystems—our focus continues to be on smallholder farmers within the drylands. We champion resilient agriculture by reviving conventional crop varieties, reintroducing uncared for and underutilized crops like small millets, and restoring degraded landscapes via sustainable practices in water conservation and soil administration.
Reviving Conventional Crop Varieties
Dryland cereals akin to sorghum and millets, as soon as ignored, are actually gaining international consideration. The Authorities of India’s declaration of 2021 because the Nationwide 12 months of Millets and the United Nations’ observance of 2023 because the Worldwide 12 months of Millets have helped highlight their advantages.
Acknowledged as Good Meals—meals that’s good for the buyer, the cultivator (farmer), and the local weather (planet)—these cereals usually are not solely wealthy in vitamins but additionally extremely resilient to drought and warmth.
Their resurgence is well timed. In keeping with the FAO, greater than three billion folks globally can not afford a nutritious diet, and micronutrient deficiencies stay widespread. Selling these hardy crops via our Good Meals Initiative helps dietary range whereas constructing meals techniques which can be extra resilient to local weather variability—a triple win for diet, local weather adaptation, and biodiversity.
Reviving Degraded Landscapes
Restoring degraded landscapes is crucial for ecosystem regeneration and biodiversity conservation. ICRISAT has demonstrated success throughout dryland areas of Asia and Africa by integrating landscape-level restoration with water conservation, sustainable soil administration, and agroecosystem regeneration.
Notable examples embody our work in Bundelkhand and Latur, India; and the Yewol Watershed, Ethiopia—serving as compelling fashions of transformation.
These initiatives present that defending biodiversity doesn’t imply halting growth—it means guiding it in a method that’s regenerative, inclusive, and enduring. It means recognizing that wholesome ecosystems underpin not solely agriculture, but additionally human well-being and financial alternative. These usually are not competing priorities—they’re interdependent outcomes.
Trying Forward: A Biodiverse Future
As the worldwide neighborhood appears to be like towards the longer term, the threats to biodiversity—local weather change, habitat loss, soil degradation, and agricultural uniformity—proceed to develop. However there may be additionally trigger for hope. The instruments to halt biodiversity loss and restore ecosystems exist already—in science, in partnerships, and within the lived information of communities which have lengthy cultivated concord with nature.
Conservation just isn’t with out challenges. It requires sustained funding, enabling insurance policies, and infrequently robust trade-offs. As we speed up efforts to fulfill the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Improvement, the second for decisive motion is now—by investing in nature-based options, supporting community-led conservation, and championing insurance policies that place biodiversity on the coronary heart of sustainable growth.
On this Worldwide Day for Organic Variety, allow us to do not forget that the trail to a extra resilient, equitable, and sustainable future begins with the alternatives we make each day—about what we domesticate, what we devour, and what we select to preserve.
At ICRISAT, via our continued dedication to crop range, resilient meals techniques, and panorama restoration, we stay proud to stroll alongside our companions in making decisions that honor each folks and the planet—particularly the two.1 billion who name the drylands dwelling.
Concord with nature is greater than a theme. It’s a duty we should embrace with urgency, function, and deep respect for the pure techniques that maintain us all.
IPS UN Bureau
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