The Curt Bergfors Food Planet Prize is the largest monetary award in the global food arena. It rewards innovative solutions that can help us shift to sustainable food systems within a ten-year timeframe. In 2023 more than 1000 nominations were received. The Agrobiodiversity Index is the final winner and receives a sum of two million USD.
The Agrobiodiversity Index helps measure the status of biodiversity in global agriculture. With only nine crops currently making up two-thirds of the world’s crop production, it provides a centralised way to track and understand what is getting lost, risks of low agrobiodiversity, and ways to improve. It could help restore the healthy, rich diets previously provided by local produce.
– It is great that the Agrobiodiversity Index is receiving this recognition. Enhancing agrobiodiversity in agroecosystems is crucial to ensure sustainable and resilient food production in the future, says SLU researcher Mattias Jonsson at the Department of Ecology.
– SLU studies agrobiodiversity in many ways, for example how agrobiodiversity contributes to resilient ecosystem services and how cropping systems can be modified to make better use of agrobiodiversity, Mattias continues.
Little is known about the current state of agrobiodiversity (the wealth of plants, animals and microorganisms used for food and agriculture) across the world. Despite its importance, agrobiodiversity is often left out of dietary guidelines, agricultural and environmental policies, business strategies, and other areas that influence our food systems.
The Agrobiodiversity Index collects data on biodiversity across the often-disconnected domains of nutrition, agriculture, and genetic resources. Besides measuring the status of agrobiodiversity, the Index identifies actions, risks, and opportunities to increase its use and conservation. The tool can be useful in a context where governments and development partners, including multilateral agencies and development banks, needs to design and monitor policies and interventions and measure progress towards global targets.
The Agrobiodiversity Index also support global conventions and treaties to monitor how well countries are doing with their commitments towards agrobiodiversity and investors to rate the policies and performance of food and agriculture companies, and make appropriate decisions.
The Agrobiodiversity Index has done something that has never been tried before. It has a vision of using science and empirical evidence to quantify and measure the sustainability of the food system, and translate this into a quantitative index for farmers, businesses, and policy, in order to accelerate the adoption of sustainable and healthy food systems.
The Biodiversity Index website
News article on Food Planet Prize's website
Two examples of agrobiodiversity research where SLU is involved:
Improving agrobiodiversity for resilient pest control services across landscapes
The Upscale Project – about realising the transformative potential of push-pull technology by expanding its scope and applicability