While still little discussed, the increase in food insecurity worldwide as a result of global warming is an important issue requiring immediate action to prevent chaos in food systems, which will once again affect vulnerable populations first and most intensely. Scientists from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) warn of the growing risks of food shortages caused by crop failures due to droughts, floods, heat stress in plants and animals, increased pests and diseases, and loss of nutritional quality.
These impacts become even more significant when considering the global food system based on the industrial-scale production of only a few species – according to a FAO study, just nine cultivated plant species account for 66% of total agricultural production and more than 90% of calories consumed.
You might be wondering: is this food monotony necessary? The answer is no! Traditional farmers know and cultivate more than 6 food species, which are present in agroecological production systems and also in the biodiversity managed in the territories conserved by these populations. But why isn't this diversity on our plates every day?
When we analyze Brazil, this puzzle gains pieces that are difficult to fit together. Our country is the fourth largest food producer in the world, generating significant foreign exchange for the economy. Since agriculture is an activity dependent on a balanced climate and other natural production factors, environmental sustainability should be a priority and understood as an essential condition by farmers and agricultural policies. However, studies show the opposite: agricultural production, deforestation, and forest fires account for 70% of Brazilian emissions of greenhouse gases, reinforcing the risks to agricultural sustainability; in other words, while it affects Brazilian agriculture, it is also affected by climate change.
The good news is that another path is possible, paved with biodiverse, inclusive, and sustainable food systems, although public policies are still far from pointing in that direction. Just consider the allocation of resources from the Plano Safra, the country's main credit policy for food production; less than 1% of available resources are allocated to socio-biodiversity value chains and economies.
And how is this path possible?
Brazil is a world champion in the diversity of plant and animal species and is also home to numerous indigenous peoples and traditional communities. Diversity, traditional knowledge, and sustainable ways of life together result in Brazil's immense socio-biodiversity. This richness, present in the diversity of products, knowledge, flavors, and high nutritional quality, is unknown to a large part of the Brazilian population, is scarce in the market, or has inaccessible prices. All of these are surmountable barriers, and Brazil's potential invites us to debate and demand the right to adequate food from a new food system that values and enables the arrival of socio-biodiverse foods on our table.
Gradually, some of these products are gaining their place at the table, such as Brazil nuts and açaí, but we still have a whole food universe to discover and incorporate into our meals foods like pequi, bacaba, mangaba, cagaita, murici, bacuri, uxi, uvaia, pinhão, babaçu, baru, jatobá, umbu… and breads made with flours from jatobá, macaúba, baru, babaçu, licuri… all produced in agroecological and extractive agricultural systems, which also contribute to the conservation of biodiversity, water, and other natural services.
Socio-biodiversity economies offer the world answers, products, and services for transforming food systems, with more biodiversity and nutritional quality on the plate, greater resilience to climate risks, and greater adaptive capacity to the impacts of climate on food production, as described above. Furthermore, the socio-bioeconomy recognizes the importance of the sustainable livelihoods of indigenous peoples, traditional peoples, and communities in the struggle to defend their rights and protect their territories, in the socio-productive inclusion of vulnerable families, in recognizing the leading role of women in value chains, and in engaging young people with their territories.
Like a beacon of hope, the experience of the Sociobiodiversity restaurant at the Climate Conference in Belém proves that this path is possible. Located in the Blue Zone, the official area of the conference, the Central do Cerrado restaurant, in partnership with the Bragantina Agroecology Network, provided four thousand meals daily during the 13 days of COP30 at a price of R$ 40,00, including a glass of native fruit juice and a dessert.
Meals prepared with food produced agroecologically or sourced from sustainable extraction from Brazilian biomes, acquired from more than 80 community associations and cooperatives throughout the country. On the plate: rice and beans, vegetables, fruits from the biomes, traditionally managed meats and fish, artisanal sweets, flours, sauces, peppers… Sociobiodiversity in practice, nourishing those who were discussing solutions to overcome the climate crisis and the future of the planet.
This experience left a legacy: it demonstrated, in practice, that Brazil can and should be a world reference in more sustainable food systems rich in socio-biodiversity.
The Society, Population and Nature Institute is proud to be part of this history: it supports the organizational strengthening process of Central do Cerrado, since its foundation, and of hundreds of agro-extractive organizations that work daily in the hope of being recognized by Brazilian society and the State as agents of transformation and climate solutions, fundamental to the necessary revolution of the world food system.
Article originally published in Brazil of Fact.