Agro-biodiversity
Also called: Crop diversity · Topic: Biodiversity and its Conservation · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 14 "Biodiversity and Conservation"
Meaning
Agro-biodiversity is the variety of crops, livestock and their wild relatives. Wild relatives are the wild plants and animals from which crops and farm animals came. This variety is the raw material for plant and animal breeding. Breeders draw on it to make new varieties that resist disease or survive drought. It is threatened when farmers give up many local varieties and grow only a few high-yielding varieties (crops bred to give large harvests).
Example
In Tehri Garhwal, Uttarakhand, the Beej Bachao Andolan ("Save the Seeds Movement", late 1980s, led by Vijay Jardhari) saves native seeds. It also keeps alive barahnaja, a traditional practice of growing about twelve crops together in one field.
Don't confuse with
- Genetic diversity: the variation of genes within any one species, wild or farmed. Agro-biodiversity covers only farm crops, livestock and their wild relatives, across many species.
Related concepts
- Biodiversity
- Species
- Genetic diversity
- Species diversity
- Ecosystem diversity
- Latitudinal diversity gradient
- Endemic species
- Importance of biodiversity
- Ecosystem services