New PAR Project: Agrobiodiversity Solutions in COVID-19

The COVID-19 health crisis has hit global, national and local economies heavily - and particularly so for the food and inputs value chain. 

Effects of this crisis are registered in multiple channels including the closure of point of sale, lockdown, decreasing purchasing power of consumers, change in consumers purchases, shortage of labor and greater controls at the borders hampering the exchange of food. 

While markets and economies have changed fast, farmers are facing challenges on readapting to this new state of play. Challenges range from looking for new customers and finding new distribution channels (in developed economies mainly) to ensuring their own food security. 

The use of agrobiodiversity embraces several potential resilience factors. Through product diversification, it can shield farmers from price and production fluctuations of individual crops, favoring greater income stability and reduce their reliance on external factors. Furthermore, it promotes greater diversity in local diets and provides a certain degree of food independence.

Information on the impact of COVID at the local level through the lens of agro-biodiversity’s potential for resilience is scant and not compiled at the current stage. PAR platform is hosting a blog for COVID-19 contributions related to agrobiodiversity. The blog gives opportunity to share about short case stories of mobilizing agrobiodiversity for coping with COVID-19 crisis and create the antibodies for building a more resilient food system.

Read the blog here.

Experts interested in contributing can contact Eleonora De Falcis (E.DeFalcis@cgiar.org) should they have any questions and send the case studies (along with some photos) to Devra Jarvis (devra.jarvis@agrobiodiversityplatform.org), Eleonora De Falcis, Elisabetta Rossetti (e.rossetti@cgiar.org) and Lindsey Hook (lindsey@hookdonabite.com).