Food Security and Biodiversity- who has the Power?

There is an increasing number of examples showing how over-exploitation and non-sustainable management of biodiversity and agro-ecological ecosystems has led to biodiversity loss, degraded ecosystems and decreasing yields and productivity. Why is this so? What can we do to change this development? Who has the responsibility to break this negative trend - who has the power?

With these questions in mind SwedBio/CBM, Cemus doctoral school, Collegium for Development Studies, Uppsala University and SLU-External Relations arranged a one-day conference with lecturers from Africa , Asia and Latin America . The purpose was to show different perspectives of the role of biodiversity for food security and production in the future. SwedBio also assisted the Swedish FAO committee and the Ministry of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs to organise a similar conference in Stockholm on the 14 th of October, 2005 . Both conferences were held to celebrate the "World Food Day", which is organised by the FAO on the 16 th of October every year. The theme for 2004 was "Food security and Biodiversity" A report (in Swedish) from the conference on the 14 th of October is available.

The speakers on the 15 th represented different disciplines and different disciplines and different perspectives and included James Dargie Director joint FAO/IAEA Division, The Indian journalist Devinder Sharma, Göran Djurfeldt, Professor of Sociology at Lund University, Hans Herren, from the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), Sarala Gopalan, IFAP, Caroline Trapp, The Federation of Swedish Farmers, LRF, August Temu from the International Center for Research in AgroForestry (ICRAF), Urban Emanuelsson, director at the Swedish Biodiversity Centre, Lennart Salomonsson from the Department of Rural Development at SLU, Maria Berlekom, SwedBio/CBM, and Klaus Pontvik from Ecocafféet. A short summary of the seminar was included in CBM´s newsletter "Biodiverse".