How agro-biodiversity conservation can rebuild CARICOM small-farming systems

ABSTRACT

There are two perspectives on climate change that govern our response in terms of the sustainability of small-scale food production. The familiar perspective focuses on the expectation of deteriorating environmental conditions. The second perspective, which sees climate change also as a global geographic shift in climate occurrences, broadens this expectation to concerns of new geographic coverage, biological connectivity, resilience, resource management, local area governance and equity in benefit from adaptation/mitigation. A more comprehensive scope of the climate change challenges requires sustainable agriculture with more practical policy actions and greater applicability of knowledge of agro-ecology. Agro-biodiversity Conservation presents an investment strategy to increase the volume of options available to the small-farming community in CARICOM Member States. A policy of on-farm conservation of agro-biodiversity holds the key to building resilience in CARICOM Agriculture. This approach will not only reinforce the perception that farmers are the most important custodians of climate-change adaptation, but also that their collective local knowledge can become an irreplaceable element in managing the inter-links in our farming system.

Keywords: Climate change, CARICOM small farms, agro-biodiversity, farming options.