We hear it on the news and read it in environmental reports: farmers are often targeted as the main actors causing the biodiversity crisis. Efforts of the farming community, however, are essential to integrate agriculture and biodiversity. We believe that farmers are key holders of the solution.

Farmers are constantly responding to new socio-economic and environmental demands and are, at the same time, trying to maintain and increase productivity to meet the food needs of a growing population. Farmers need to identify how their activities relate to and promote practices that improve biodiversity while maintaining the economic viability of their activities.

Farmers want to participate in environmental protection, but this generates additional costs that can become a burden to many farm families. While farmers have their responsibility in this integration process, this is a shared responsibility with the rest of society.

Implementing change
Let us, therefore, define the main issues and what measures need to be in place to implement change.

Public policies — Government support mechanisms and stewardship programmes are essential for providing the necessary incentive measures for farmers. Farming is first a business and a livelihood, but it also has a critical conservation role to play. For conservation efforts to work the farmers must see benefits. This is why it is so important to have strong political will from national governments, donors and development agencies to implement mechanisms that reward farmers for their efforts. As an illustration of effective stewardship mechanisms, governments in some developed countries have encouraged farmers to cultivate a varied range of crops and livestock that enhance local biodiversity. At the same time, governments and the business community have helped to create the marketing networks to be able to sell those local products. This enhances biodiversity, through the protection of local varieties and the promotion of sustainable agricultural practices, and generates income for farmers.

North-south cooperation — Unfortunately, most farmers from the developing countries do not have access to the same resources. As a result, protection of biodiversity becomes a luxury. Instead, short-term food security is the overriding concern. How can we solve this problem? Global innovative partnerships deserve to be developed. Since governments and farmers’ organizations in developing countries lack the capacity to reward farmers for environmental services rendered to nature through such practices as zero tillage, reforestation, fighting desertification and carbon storage, economic partnerships need to be established with developed countries. These would aim to transfer and adapt stewardship mechanisms which have proved to be successful in developed countries for the benefit of small-scale farmers in developing countries e.g. credit systems, extension services.

Information exchange and capacity building — The lack of regional information is proving to be a significant handicap for farmers in reducing the negative impacts of agriculture on the landscape. Data needs to be collected, including an inventory of the diversity of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, and made available to farmers. Such information needs to be accessible so that farmers are aware of the urgency of this problem and understand how remedying it is in their interests. Through education, they will feel ownership for the cause of biodiversity enhancement in their farming activities and will be in a better position to lobby and work with governments to find ways of achieving this.

Research agendas and project implementation — The research community is one of the key stakeholders that must partner with farmers and farmers’ organisations. Results will be maximized if farmers play a participatory role . It is therefore important that both communities work together and that researchers listen to farmers’ needs. Research on the positive synergies between biodiversity and economic activities must be strengthened, particularly on the roles of fauna and micro-organisms in soil fertility, insect pollenisation, and biological pest control.

Legislation — In many countries, agriculture is frequently subject to a plethora of environmental legislation, which lacks coordination with other legislation affecting agricultural production. The trend often within government is to attend these issues in isolation. There is also a lack of capacity to enforce legislation in a coordinated way. Capacity therefore needs to be built so legislation can be enforced in a coordinated way with farmers, local communities and other relevant stakeholders.

Rights and responsibilities — Overall, the rights and responsibilities of farmers in the fight to conserve biodiversity must be clarified. Agriculture is a prime example of how human activities affect ecosystems. Thus, it needs to become a priority on governments’ agendas, both nationally and internationally. There is enough information available on the cause and effect; now it is time to use this information to develop rural strategies to enhance biodiversity with the participation of farmers’ organisations.

International biodiversity day
This year, the International Day for Biological Diversity focuses on agriculture. IFAP, through its network of members, looks forward to taking part in this celebration . After having contributed to the discussion on the review of the Programme of Work on Agricultural Biodiversity during SBSTTA-13 in Rome, a delegation of IFAP farm leaders is preparing to take part in COP-9 to consolidate the positive steps that have been taken by Parties in Rome. Farmers are ready to contribute to the implementation of an ambitious programme with the CBD, FAO, Parties and other stakeholders. We therefore hope that the outcome document at COP-9 will continue to recognise the important role that farmers and their organisations can play in the implementation of the Programme of Work.

Nora Ourabah Haddad is Senior Policy Officer and Jessica Goodfellow is Communications Officer, International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP).