Veena Sharma and Mandeep Singh Azad
Division of Agronomy
Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology Chatha Campus,Jammu

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is the very foundation for all the Earth’s essential goods and services. There are 80,000 species of edible plants known on Earth, but 90% of the world’s food comes from a mere 20 of these species. Edible plant species, both those we know of and those we don’t, offer a tremendous resource of possibilities that could greatly add to the security of our food. Breeding cultivars with their wild counterparts can also confer resistance to diseases and increase crop yield.

Need to Conserve Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the life support system of our planet- we depend on it for the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink. Every aspect of our life is sustained by the Earth’s biodiversity. Biological resources must be conserved if they are to continue supporting life on Earth. The connections between biodiversity and our sustainable future appear closer and closer the more we look. We literally need to conserve biodiversity like our lives depend on it.The destruction of much of the world's wilderness areas has already deprived us of the opportunity to evaluate the contributions that a great many plant species might have made towards the elimination of deficiency diseases.

Many plants used as human foods contain compounds that are toxic to man. If intake is sufficiently high, these toxins may cause disease. Breeding programmes designed to eliminate toxins from crops species or reduce their concentrations to acceptable levels depend on genetic variability within the species or the possibility of producing hybrids with the desired characteristics.