CGIAR will bring its research on crop diversity and farm landscapes to the seventeenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17), to be held in Yerevan, Armenia, from 19 to 30 October 2026, the research partnership said. Under the theme Taking Action for Nature, countries will carry out the first global review of progress on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
CGIAR says biodiversity loss is weakening food, land and water systems: as crop diversity narrows and ecosystems decline, farmers have fewer options for coping with drought, floods, pests and disease. Its work contributes to 12 of the framework's 23 targets.
CGIAR genebanks hold more than 720,000 accessions representing over 3,000 plant species, including traditional varieties and wild relatives of crops, held for the international community. Germplasm health testing allows safe exchange, safety duplication protects collections against loss, cryopreservation conserves crops such as banana, cassava and potato whose clonal diversity cannot be kept as seed, and digital tools help users find material with drought, heat or disease traits.
Its Multifunctional Landscapes programme combines spatial evidence with participatory planning. Participatory rangeland management, developed by ILRI with partners, now covers more than two million hectares in East Africa, where communities agree how shared grazing, pasture and water are managed. MyFarmTrees combines science-based choice of native trees, mobile monitoring and verified payments to farmers for restoration.
At COP17 CGIAR will host the Food & Agriculture Pavilion, with sessions on community-led restoration and on the links between genetic diversity, seed systems and landscape resilience, and official side events including Genebanks for the Future and a session on agroecology and agroforestry. It wants the meeting to give stronger recognition to agricultural biodiversity, including animal, aquatic and microbial diversity, clearer links between biodiversity strategies and agriculture, climate and water policies, and reliable funding for genebanks and restoration.
The article was written by Regina Edward-Uwadiale for CGIAR.
Photo: Nikkimaria / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: CGIAR
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