Biodiversity is the foundation of resilient food systems, yet modern agriculture often relies on a narrow range of crops and genetic resources, leaving global food security vulnerable to climate extremes, soil degradation, and pest outbreaks. This session will explore how crop genetic diversity from landraces to advanced breeding material can be harnessed to achieve climate-resilient, sustainable, and nutrition-secure agricultural systems.
We invite contributions that examine biodiversity’s role in:
•Developing climate-smart crops using conventional, molecular, and AI-assisted breeding methods.
•Integrating crop biodiversity with ecosystem services, such as nitrogen fixation, carbon sequestration, and pollinator support.
•Applying biodiversity-based approaches to enhance soil health, water-use efficiency, and pest/disease resilience.
•Designing agroecological and regenerative farming systems that strengthen the biodiversity–food–climate nexus.
•Translating research into policy and value-chain innovations that benefit smallholder farmers and biodiversity conservation.
The session will also highlight case studies from underutilized crops—such as soybean innovations in South Asia—that demonstrate how biodiversity-rich agricultural strategies can simultaneously improve livelihoods, reduce import dependency, and contribute to Kunming-Montréal GBF targets.
We welcome interdisciplinary, scalable research connecting genetic, species, and ecosystem-level biodiversity.
Intended Outcome:
To generate a cross-disciplinary synthesis of how biodiversity-based crop innovation can operationalize climate adaptation and sustainable food production, leading to a research–policy–practice roadmap for biodiversity-resilient agriculture.