The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has underscored the importance of biodiversity conservation for agriculture and food security as part of the commemoration of the International Day for Biodiversity which falls on 22 May every year.
On this day, SADC reflects on its role in preserving plant genetic resources, through the SADC Plant Genetic Resource Centre (SPGRC) as a source of direct food and nutrition as well as novel genes to mitigate against climate change. Through this initiative, the SADC region has to date collected and secured in regional and national genebanks over 80 000 unique accessions of plants that form the core sources of food for the people in SADC.
Out of the 80,000 accessions, over 19, 000 accessions have been duplicated by the SADC Member States at the SADC regional genebank at SPGRC in Lusaka, Zambia for long term storage. SADC has also duplicated 68% of germplasm in its regional genebank to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway as part of the risk mitigation measure against negative effects of climate change,
SADC’s efforts to secure plant genetic diversity through safety duplications is meant to safeguard and prevent loss of its biodiversity, thereby making it available to researchers and farmers in developing new varieties that are more resilient, nutritious, productive and adapted to the current and future environmental challenges affecting food production systems in the SADC region.
SADC is currently implementing the Southern Africa Regional Plant Genetic Resources Conservation and Sustainable Utilization Strategy which seeks to promote collection, safeguarding and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture to enhance the resilience of farming and food systems for improved food, and nutrition security and livelihoods in the SADC region.
Globally, this year, the International Day for Biodiversity is being commemorated under the theme; “Be part of the Plan”. The theme calls on stakeholders to showcase ways in which they are supporting the implementation of the Biodiversity Plan, which sets goals and measures to stop and reverse biodiversity loss.
