The impact of agro-biodiversity and eco-system services in development or A new vision for a just, sustainable and productive agriculture

In this presentation I challenge the assumption that increasing yields should be a priority under all circumstances. Today we produce enough food to feed the world but still there are 1 billion people that are hungry. The problem is not that there isn’t enough food but the poor people don’t have access to that food. Then I examine the relationship between biodiversity and agriculture and the idea that biodiversity provides ecosystem services. I describe an example showing that complex ecological interaction result in the control of insect pests. Then I discuss the debate between two paradigms regarding agriculture and conservation of biodiverisy: separation (land sparing) versus integration (land sharing), and argue that the separation paradigm is flawed. I finish with a discussion of what I perceived is needed to solve the biodiversity and food crises in the world: a focus on small-scale agroecological farms with strong social and ecological relationships