The International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) Declaration on Biodiversity and Agriculture

“Small-scale food producers remain unrecognised in the CBD Global Biodiversity Framework”, according to IPC.

The International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) is a global platform that brings together indigenous peoples and small-scale food producers involved in the conservation, sustainable use, development and governance of agricultural biodiversity, which is the basis of food sovereignty.

One of the main items on the SBSTTA agenda, item 7 on Biodiversity and Agriculture, rightly focuses on soil biodiversity, which has long been and continues to be conserved by the peasants, pastoralists, forest dwellers, indigenous peoples and other small-scale food producers who feed most of the world.

Therefore, there seem to be two serious omissions in the draft 2020-2030 Action Plan (ref: CBD/SBSTTA/24/7/Rev.1, annex II). Firstly, there is no mention of agroecology throughout the Action Plan and, secondly, the small-scale food producers identified by UNDROP remain unrecognised.

The Action Plan should emphasise the fundamental role of Agroecology and dynamic soil management, which small-scale producers and Indigenous Peoples have carried out for millennia and which are key to restoring, maintaining and developing soil biodiversity.

In element 2, "Encourage the use of sustainable soil management practices", there is no direct mention of agro-ecological practices of peasant and indigenous communities and related traditional knowledge among the activities that preserve soil biodiversity.

As stated in point 45 of the reference document and as recognised in Decision XIII/3, paragraph 27, "the Conference of the Parties recognised the important contribution of indigenous and local communities, in particular as managers of centres of origin of agricultural diversity, and their role in the management and restoration of critical ecosystems, ecological rotation and agroforestry". It is therefore an even more glaring omission that our role in maintaining biodiversity is not explicitly recognised in the Action Plan.

We cannot help but wonder what vested interests make it so difficult to include agroecology in the global biodiversity conservation strategy. Instead of the repeated use of the ill-defined "sustainable agriculture", the Action Plan must call for an agroecological transition if we are to truly protect, preserve and restore biodiversity below and above ground.

We recommend that a fifth target be added to the Action Plan: 5) Recognise, support and secure the role and rights of indigenous peoples and small-scale food producers in maintaining biodiversity through agroecology. Finally, we join others in warning against the inclusion of undefined language in the CBD, such as "nature-based solutions", which can open the door to "mitigation pathways", such as large-scale afforestation, that are neither "natural" nor "solutions" and distract from genuinely transformative actions. The CBD has its own well-defined terminology in "ecosystem approaches" (decision V/6), and should continue to use it rather than adopting new, vague and undefined

terminology.

Industrial agriculture, especially deforestation and monocultures for livestock feed, the overuse of antimicrobials in intensive livestock production, and the resulting loss of distinctive plant and animal breeds have serious consequences for soil fertility and biodiversity. Action must be directed towards agro-ecological solutions that support biodiversity in all its forms and at all levels (genetic, species and agro-ecosystem). This should be addressed in targets 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 9,10, 13 and 17 currently proposed in the Global Biodiversity Framework.

By IPC

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