A Call to Farmers Across the Globe: Let Us Revive Our Indigenous Food and Tree Varieties
Dear Farmers—both potential and practicing—across the globe,I write to you with a message that I believe carries enormous importance for the future of our families, communities, nations, and generations yet unborn.
It is time for us to rediscover, protect, and revive our indigenous food crops and tree varieties.
For generations, our ancestors cultivated foods and trees that were naturally adapted to their local environments.
These indigenous varieties provided food, medicine, animal fodder, building materials, shade, income, and ecological balance.
They survived local climatic conditions and formed an important part of our agricultural heritage.Yet, many of these valuable varieties are gradually disappearing.
As farmers, we cannot afford to watch this happen.Climate change is already affecting agriculture through unpredictable rainfall, prolonged droughts, floods, soil degradation, rising temperatures, emerging pests and diseases, and declining agricultural productivity.
At the same time, food insecurity continues to threaten millions of families.One practical response lies partly in our own agricultural heritage.
I therefore call upon every farmer, agricultural entrepreneur, community leader, researcher, institution, and young person interested in agriculture to take deliberate steps to identify, conserve, multiply, and cultivate indigenous food and tree varieties that are suitable for their respective environments.
Let us plant indigenous trees around our homes, farms, schools, institutions, and communities.
Let us preserve indigenous fruits, vegetables, cereals, legumes, medicinal plants, and other valuable food varieties.
Let us teach our children what our grandparents knew about local crops and trees.
This is not a call to reject modern agriculture or scientific innovation. Rather, it is a call to combine modern knowledge with the wisdom and biological resources that our communities have inherited.Every farmer can make a difference.
One farmer preserving a disappearing seed matters.One household planting indigenous fruit trees matters.One community establishing a local seed bank matters.One school teaching children about indigenous food varieties matters.
One generation choosing to preserve what previous generations cultivated can make a difference for generations to come.
We must begin viewing indigenous varieties not merely as remnants of the past, but as valuable assets for our future food systems, climate resilience, biodiversity, nutrition, and rural livelihoods.Farmers, the future of agriculture is not only about producing more.
It is also about producing wisely, protecting our natural resources, strengthening resilience, and ensuring that future generations inherit productive land and diverse biological resources.Let us therefore act now.
Save the seeds. Plant the trees. Preserve the knowledge. Restore our biodiversity. Feed our communities. Protect our future.The fight against climate change and food insecurity is not the responsibility of governments alone.
It is a responsibility we can all participate in—one farm, one seed, one tree, and one community at a time.Let us revive what we are in danger of losing, and let us use our agricultural heritage to build a more resilient and food-secure future.
Yours in Agriculture, Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development,
