The IU could be adopted in June, following a tough week of negotiations by the Contact Group. Use UK abc Site Search, to search within this site. It is the first link in the food chain, developed and safeguarded by farmers, herders and fishers throughout the world. It is the result of the careful selection and inventive developments of farmers, herders and fishers over millennia.
Agricultural biodiversity is a vital sub-set of biodiversity.
It is a creation of humankind whose food and livelihood security depend on the sustained management of those diverse biological resources that are important for food and agriculture. Agricultural biodiversity results from the interaction between the environment, genetic resources and the management systems and practices used by culturally diverse peoples resulting in the different ways land and water resources are used for production. Agricultural biodiversity has spatial, temporal and scale dimensions especially at agro-ecosystem levels. Most ecosystems have been to some extent modified or cultivated by human activity for the production of food and income and for livelihood security. These can be aggregated to form a hierarchy of agro-ecosystems.