Biodiversity

Environment · Redazione · 2026-07-08

All the news on biodiversity: in-depth features and analyses on species, ecosystems and threats such as intensive agriculture and climate change.

What is meant by food biodiversity

Biological diversity, or biodiversity, refers to the full range of different characteristics belonging to living organisms of every origin; biodiversity, in other words, represents the genetic heritage of the Earth's ecosystem. Genetic resources form the biological foundation for agriculture and livestock farming, and in practice for the present and future sustenance of humankind — this is the context in which we speak of food biodiversity.

Food biodiversity is under threat

Unfortunately, this genetic heritage — this diversity of life forms — is increasingly threatened today and risks being progressively depleted, with unforeseeable consequences for all of humanity. Currently, cultivated varieties have been reduced to just a few dozen hybrids and crossbreeds, created to meet the demands of intensive agriculture, for which quantitative output and production consistency are of paramount importance.

The technological standardisation of the agri-food system has encouraged a flattening of the variability among cultivated plants: today, around 30 plants cover 95 per cent of the world's nutritional needs.

Large-scale intensive agriculture has displaced the cultivation of "ancient" seeds, replacing them with "modern" hybrids better suited to withstand chemical treatments and the standards of large-scale production (monoculture, mechanisation, premature harvesting, and so on). Sadly, over the past 50 years, according to the latest estimates, approximately 300,000 plant varieties have disappeared from the planet. This process has intensified in recent years, and there is well-founded reason to believe that around one fifth of plant and animal species will not survive much longer.

The reduction of food biodiversity is harmful to everyone

Moreover, the massive use of chemicals in agriculture has shown itself to carry several drawbacks: the number of parasitic diseases caused by viruses, bacteria and fungi has steadily increased; furthermore, with the introduction of seed varieties alien to local ones, certain viruses and bacteria have spread from one continent to another, bringing serious imbalances to agricultural ecosystems.

Crema budwig semi — Traditional seeds, selected over millennia of human agricultural experience and perfectly adapted to the most diverse environmental conditions, represent the historical and biological memory of agriculture.

The progressive genetic erosion (the gradual disappearance of animal and plant species) could cause incalculable damage to the environment and to humankind, since a drastic reduction in the genetic heritage would eliminate those natural and spontaneous capacities for transformation and evolutionary adaptation to the varied present and future conditions of our planet.