Growing decline in plant and animal diversity ‘threatens food security’

A decline in the diversity of farmed plants and livestock breeds is gathering pace, threatening future food supplies for the world’s growing population, the head of a new UN panel on biodiversity said yesterday.

Preserving neglected animal breeds and plants is necessary as they could have genes resistant to future diseases or shifts in the climate to warmer temperatures, more droughts or downpours, Zakri Abdul Hamid said.

“The loss of biodiversity is happening faster and everywhere, even among farm animals,” Zakri told a conference of 450 experts in Trondheim, central Norway, in his first speech as founding chair of the UN biodiversity panel.