Global food production systems face three simultaneous challenges: (1) sustained provision of calories and nutrients to the world’s growing human populations, especially in the global South; (2) climate change adaptation and mitigation; and (3) maintenance of above- and below-ground agrobiodiversity, which has been dwindling due to increasing reliance on agrochemicals and monocropping. The agrobiodiversity challenge may be the most important of these, because meeting this challenge can help address the other two. Some studies indicate that biodiverse agroecosystems may provide better nutrition and may be more climate resilient than the ecologically simplified systems increasingly common in many parts of the world (e.g., TAAS, 2021; Cozim-Melges et al., 2024), but conclusive evidence is lacking, and outcomes may be highly location-dependent.

There has been considerable discussion recently about agrobiodiversity’s role in sustaining agriculture (e.g., Jones et al., 2021; Banerjee et al., 2024; Cadena-Zamudio et al., 2024). Nevertheless, the concept of agrobiodiversity, its relationship with wild biodiversity, and its potential roles in landscape management remain poorly understood. There are few examples of how agrobiodiverse, multifunctional landscapes may be fostered and sustained at large spatial scales. Finally, there is a lack of discussion about the kinds of changes in leading institutions such as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) that may be necessary to bring about large-scale transformation.

Here we address the agrobiodiversity challenges for food production systems in the Global South. In many regions, agricultural practices that rely on synthetic inputs are rapidly replacing traditional farming systems based on agroecological principles. More than half a century after the advent of Green Revolution agricultural practices, observations of social and ecological harms are proliferating. We ask what kinds of policy frameworks would be needed to adapt and adjust these practices to make agroscapes more biodiverse and more resilient to environmental shocks without sacrificing productivity.

We take India, one of the world’s largest and most diverse agricultural systems, as an example. We first consider the concept of agrobiodiversity, redefining it as more than the diversity of crops or soil organisms. We then examine the drivers of agrobiodiversity loss, outlining policies and initiatives needed to accelerate efforts to restore agrobiodiversity. To conclude, we briefly discuss the roles of policies and research systems in facilitating and accelerating the needed changes. Our recommendations for increasing agrobiodiversity are widely applicable, especially across South Asia, where cultural-social-economic contexts are comparable. Our contribution is policy-specific, offering pathways to fostering agrobiodiversity in India and other parts of the world—pathways that could potentially benefit many millions of people.

‘Agrobiodiversity’ is the totality of plants, animals, and microorganisms that coexist and interact across agricultural landscapes—as well as their underlying genetic diversity. In 1999, the FAO described agricultural biodiversity as “the variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms that are important to food and agriculture, which result from the interaction between the environment, genetic resources and the management systems and practices used by people” (FAO, 1999). Twenty years later, FAO’s definition had not changed much (FAO, 2019). Such definitions leave much unspecified. Case-based applications of the term often focus narrowly on the organisms and processes that contribute directly to agricultural production, such as pollination, pest control, and nutrient cycling (e.g., Hussain and Qamar, 2020; Jones et al., 2021; Banerjee et al., 2024; Cadena-Zamudio et al., 2024; Hailu, 2025).

To facilitate a transition away from dependence on synthetic inputs (fertilizers, pesticides), especially in complex landscapes with smallholder production, we advocate for a broader view of agrobiodiversity. We foreground the extensive network of ecological relationships influencing smallholder productivity in and around the farm, and even at considerable distances in space and time. These influences are not necessarily supportive—agrobiodiversity is not to be confused with ecosystem services. The disservices imposed by crop pest herbivores, invasive species, disease vectors, and human-wildlife conflict (e.g., crop raiding) may determine a season’s outputs as much as the services.

As shown in Figure 1 (depicting a landscape in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, India), agrobiodiversity is not something abstract. It can be observed in traditionally-managed contemporary landscapes at multiple levels: (1) genetic variation within each crop and livestock species, (2) diversity of crops, livestock and the varieties of each in the farmer’s field, (3) range of other plant and animal species used in and around the farm, (4) overall biodiversity of the landscape where the farm is situated, and (5) large-scale agroecological zones or landforms that add a fifth layer of diversity and constitute the species pool from which lower-level agrobiodiversity is selected.

Importantly, the boundaries among the five layers in Figure 1 are notably permeable. Wild biodiversity and agrobiodiversity overlap and interact continuously, providing each other with key resources at the landscape level—pollination services, forage for pollinators, control of crop pests, soil fertility maintenance, flood control, and many other environmental benefits (Pywell et al., 2015; Dainese et al., 2019; Woodcock et al., 2019; Cole et al., 2022; Díaz-Siefer et al., 2022; Frank, 2024). The critical below-ground biodiversity extends across all 5 layers. All food production systems and nutritional security are founded on this combined biodiversity (Frison et al., 2011; Díaz et al., 2019). As climate change intensifies, prospects for developing climate-resilient agriculture increasingly rely both on biodiversity on farms and on the wild biodiversity of surrounding landscapes. Thus, ‘agrobiodiversity’ needs to be reconceptualized as a broad range of species and ecological interactions surrounding and influencing farm production systems both above- and below-ground.

India is rich in wild plant biodiversity, harboring approximately 18,000 species of vascular plants. One of Vavilov’s eight centers of origin for cultivated crops, the subcontinent has been exceptionally rich in the precursors to genetic and species-level diversity in domesticated agricultural systems. However, Dulloo et al. (2021) concluded that over 75% of farmers’ crop landraces are vulnerable, threatened or already lost today, and that rapid interventions are needed to prevent “large-scale genetic erosion.”

Over 100,000 varieties of rice were estimated to have existed in India before the advent of the Green Revolution (Richharia and Govindasamy, 1990). More recent statements have repeated this estimate without verifying it. Today, it appears that there may be around 7,000 extant rice varieties in India, but most of these varieties are not found in markets. Perhaps 15–20 common varieties dominate the rice market (Shah Enterprises, n.d.).

The process of defining and registering indigenous livestock breeds is ongoing and incomplete, but it appears that the population of indigenous cattle breeds is shrinking (e.g., by 6% between 2012 and 2019: Shagun, 2023), while the population of exotic and mixed breeds is expanding (Singh and Sharma, 2017). As long ago as 2009, MoEFCC (2009) worried that half of the indigenous goat breeds, a third of sheep breeds, a fifth of cattle breeds and almost all poultry breeds were threatened. This pattern of homogenization and simplification of agricultural systems is closely linked with the overall decline and degradation of natural ecosystems, as well as the increasing sensitivity of India’s farmers to market forces. The loss of resilience often associated with increasing productivity may be risky under conditions of climate change.

Of course, agrobiodiversity loss and reduction are not limited to India. Global conservation assessments from the IUCN Red List cover 30% of known edible plant species, with 11% classified as threatened. Traditional crop varieties are still used in some regions, but of the >6,000 plant species cultivated globally for food, just nine contribute two thirds of total crop production, while a quarter of the world’s local livestock breeds are believed to be at risk of extinction.

The fundamental driver of agrobiodiversity decline in India is the rapid transition from traditional agroecosystems to ‘intensive’ agricultural systems characterized by monocropping of high-yielding agricultural varieties and heavy reliance on synthetic inputs. In the short run (over 50–60 years), such systems have provided calories and food security for expanding populations, but the social and environmental costs of this system have been documented and continue to mount (Bawa and Seidler, 2023). Indian agriculture reports severe losses of soil quality and productivity in many places (Joshi et al., 2023). Here we focus specifically on the loss of agrobiodiversity associated with chemically intensive systems in India, suggesting that biodiversity loss also underlies many other emerging crises.

The factors that hinder the maintenance and sustainable use¹ of agrobiodiversity may be broadly categorized as (1) loss of genetic diversity at the intraspecific (crop) level, (2) loss of cropping system diversity at the farm level, and (3) reductions in ecosystem (landscape-level) diversity. Progress in each of these areas has been constrained by government policies, by markets, and by institutional arrangements (see Table 1). Consequently, many farm systems struggle to meet the needs of the present and immediate future, while ignoring the needs of the slightly more distant future. Below we examine each of these factors in turn (summarized in Table 1).

Diverse agroecosystems with rich on- and off-farm biodiversity still exist in many parts of India, particularly in regions where indigenous groups have preserved traditional farming techniques (Ravikanth et al., 2020). There is keen interest in a long list of alternative systems, collectively described as ‘natural farming’. These systems are based on enhancing soil fertility through stimulating biological processes in place of applying agrochemicals, as well as on multi-cropping (often including trees), systematic crop rotation, cover crops, and minimal tillage. To achieve the key goal of maintaining or increasing productivity per unit land area without resorting to commercial synthetic inputs, these systems apply techniques to support the availability of nutrients by enhancing both above- and below-ground agrobiodiversity. Such methods are partly grounded in traditional practices, and tend to respect local and regional social conventions while also introducing innovations based on agroecological principles (Kumar et al., 2020). Many natural farming systems are ‘intensive’ in the sense that they involve high inputs of labor, skills, and knowledge. Can such systems meet the simultaneous requirements of productivity and climate resilience mentioned in the Introduction section?

One of several varieties of ‘natural farming’ now being practiced in India, Andhra Pradesh Community-managed Natural Farming (APCNF) is being adopted by communities across several states of India. For scaling, CNF relies on systems of farmer-to-farmer information transfer, contrasting sharply with the chronically understaffed and underfunded government extension services, which are said to increase dependency on commercial markets and exploitative credit arrangements (Khadse et al., 2018).

Andhra Pradesh (AP) state began supporting APCNF in 2016. Nationally, the Modi administration has gotten behind the rapid expansion of CNF into other regions. A National Mission for Natural Farming was declared in November 2024. NITI Aayog, the Government’s primary policy think-tank, says 10 million farmers will be encouraged to adopt CNF over the next 2 years, and they will be supported by certification and branding initiatives.

However, central government agencies are not all in agreement with this rapid roll-out of CNF. Evidence that alternative systems such as CNF can be as productive as intensive monocropping is often circumstantial and sometimes conflicting. A survey-based study (CESS and IDS, 2022) and a crop-cutting study (GIST Impact, 2023) showed substantial productivity increases and input cost reductions. A short testing program across six districts of Andhra Pradesh found that CNF improved yields of several crops in most but not all districts, implying that efficacy depends partly on environmental conditions (Duddigan et al., 2022, 2023). A follow-up study was unable to conclusively determine a mechanistic cause for these variations (Duddigan et al., 2024). In contrast, a testing program run by ICAR reported steep declines in rice and wheat yields under CNF (Das et al., 2024), unless exogenous amendments of farmyard manure were made—in which case yields were higher than under a conventional system. Large scale and long-term systematic testing protocols are indispensable for moving forward, and should be undertaken wherever possible under field conditions, in collaboration with farmers.

In complex multifunctional agroscapes, decline or restoration of agrobiodiversity cannot be considered in isolation from the overall loss or enhancement of wild biodiversity. For sustained productivity, all agricultural systems need to be embedded in functional networks of ecological relationships. Surrounding biodiversity elements, including belowground ecosystems, are essential components of every production system and should themselves be considered critical agrobiodiversity. We close with several observations that are specific to the Indian context but have parallels in other systems.

First, in the spirit of nature-based solutions for sustainable agriculture, the Government of India has established several programs to explore natural farming systems. Conflicting results from limited trials indicate the need for controlled trials at multiple sites. Controlled trials on comparable plots should directly compare inputs/outputs among systems and should identify pathways leading to further yield gains (Bawa and Seidler, 2023). Yield should not be the only parameter evaluated, as diversified agricultural ecosystems also have social and environmental benefits (Rasmussen et al., 2024).

Second, large countries such as India will need to nurture a diversity of locally adaptive approaches to sustain current levels of production while meeting climate challenges. We must consider how monocropping systems and hybrid systems can be modified to be more efficient and less destructive in terms of resource use and effects on human and ecosystem health. A new commitment to expanding extension services and strengthening soil health programs is needed to make sure that where farmers do use synthetic fertilizers, they do so in appropriate proportions.

Third, effective management of complex multifunctional landscapes requires sectoral integration of agriculture, water and natural ecosystems (Bawa and Seidler, 2023). This has implications for rural labor needs and opportunities. Natural farming systems are labor-intensive (GIST Impact, 2023). Farm labor is currently scarce in many places (Mahapatra, 2024), but rural unemployment rates are also very high. A recent modelling exercise for Andhra Pradesh (FAO, 2024) projects a decline from the current 31% unemployment rate to 7% by 2050 in a scenario with a strong commitment to natural farming. From this perspective, the labor intensity of natural farming could be a strength.

Fourth, reimagined NARS should collaborate closely with policy think-tanks to develop new frameworks for integrating biodiversity and sustainability. New paradigms in agricultural research, education and extension are needed to fully develop multiple systems that enhance biodiversity while increasing climate and socio-economic resilience. In India, the government think-tank NITI-Aayog calls for a ‘new paradigm’ in agriculture (Patel et al., 2022). But this new paradigm must be based on research and evidence. India’s agricultural research system, like that of many other countries, has long followed CGIAR’s narrow emphasis on plant breeding and high-yielding crop varieties, necessitating monocultures and heavy chemical inputs. CGIAR itself is now shifting its attention to broader agendas of sustainability science including sustainable farming, but many NARS remain steeped in ‘Green Revolution’ traditions. The sustainability goal may remain elusive for CGIAR, too, as long as its various centers remain focused on particular groups of species, rather than on whole systems in particular geographies.

Finally, political leadership will need to play a critical role in shifting paradigms. In India, several states are now experimenting with scaling natural farming systems. Parts of the central government have declared commitment to this shift at least since 2019, initially as a step toward the 2016 GoI goal of “doubling farmers’ incomes.” However, questions remain about the viability of many regional variations of natural farming. Wider implementation would be difficult—even counterproductive—if the national agricultural research system does not undergo restructuring as suggested above.