Wednesday, Apr 20, 2005
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CHENNAI: "Agricultural biodiversity is essential to reduce poverty and hunger, which will also promote better health for women and children, besides improving the lives of rural people in a sustained manner," said M.S. Swaminathan of MSSR Foundation here on Tuesday. Explaining the draft resolutions adopted at the conclusion of a two-day consultation of the "Role of biodiversity in achieving the millennium development goals (MDG)", Prof. Swaminathan said the resolutions would be refined in the next week to be presented at the United Nations special meet to be held in September this year. He said the two-day meet had reached broad agreement that the use of agricultural biodiversity was essential to achieve many of the MDG. It could boost incomes of farmers and reduce poverty. It was the asset of poor people through which their lives should be improved. Prof. Swaminathan said the challenge of the MDG was not simply to reduce the hunger percentage but to attack the hidden hunger. For women and children in the poorest rural areas, the single most effective solution for their hidden hunger was to increase the dietary diversity. This, he said, was possible through fruits and vegetables being grown in home gardens as they would complement the dietary diversification and fortification. Emile A. Frison, Director-General of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), which is the co-sponsor of the meet, said agriculture biodiversity would help improve crop productivity, help farmers in marginal areas to minimise crop failure and avoid micro nutrient deficiency, especially among children. The draft resolutions among other things stressed the need for promoting dietary diversity and nutritional literacy in school curricula and rehabilitating traditional food stuffs; promoting the value of agricultural biodiversity and dietary diversity to farmers through agricultural extension workers and health and nutrition professionals; ensuring that local food supplies were based on appropriate indigenous crops; making available products of agricultural biodiversity in all markets; recognising agricultural biodiversity in national plans for development; incorporating it in existing policy tools and adjusting research priorities to give more emphasis to the agricultural biodiversity. About 100 representatives from 21 countries participated in the meet jointly sponsored by the MSSRF, IPGRI, Rome, and the Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilised Species, Rome.
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