Catalysing agrobiodiversity: a call for differentiated and complementary approaches

With just 80 of the 7,000 plant species humans have historically cultivated making a major contribution to today’s global food supply, the world has witnessed an alarming loss of agrobiodiversity.

Despite multiple schemes for conserving wild biodiversity, comparatively little has been done to conserve agrobiodiversity, and there is a funding gap of US$700 billion per year. Due to the different scales and agricultural contexts involved, no single approach can close this gap.

This report identifies three approaches – market-based, sociocultural and biocentric – each with its own unique finance mechanism, that can meet the needs and priorities of all stakeholders, from agroindustry to smallholder farmers, Indigenous Peoples and local communities who reject mechanisms that commodify nature and biocultural heritage.