Food composition is a basic requirement for biodiversity and nutrition. Nutrition and biodiversity feature directly in the UN Millennium Development Goals to “Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger” (Goal 1) and to “Ensure environmental sustainability” (Goal 7).  

Agricultural biodiversity has played a pivotal role in sustaining and strengthening food, nutrition, and health and livelihood security all over the world. Although progress has been made in enhancing productivity through the sustainable use of genetic resources for food and agriculture, over 800 million people suffer from hunger and malnutrition. There is a need to integrate biodiversity into food security and anti-hunger policies. In order to do so our knowledge about biodiversity for food and agriculture must improve, and nutritional status (food composition and consumption) is an essential component.

The first nutrition indicator for biodiversity is related to food composition. It aims to report on progress regarding food composition for biodiversity and will help us to value and preserve our planet’s existing biodiversity within ecosystems, with their many sources of nutritionally-rich foods. It is hoped that this indicator will stimulate the generation, collection and dissemination of food composition data on foods at subspecies level in general and specifically on indigenous and traditional foods. These data will be useful in demonstrating the importance of cultivar-specific composition data, their impact on nutrient intakes and the link between biodiversity, nutrition and food security.

The Expert Consultation on Nutrition Indicators for Biodiversity was held on 21 October 2007 in São Paulo, Brazil, and assembled 16 experts on biodiversity and food composition from 13 countries. The aim of the Consultation was to develop a food composition indicator for biodiversity and nutrition.

Templates for reporting have been developed and INFOODS data centres agreed to report regularly on the indicator and FAO agreed to compile these data and report on them yearly. In 2008, the baseline data collection and a poster explaining the Indicator were presented at the Thirteenth Meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical, and Technological Advice, 18 to 22 February 2008, FAO Headquarters, Rome, Italy. The data collection for 2009 is ongoing.
 

The indicator can be expressed at national, regional or international level.

These slides show the baseline data collected for the indicator of February 2008. They show that most available data counting for the nutritional indicator for biodiversity on food composition are on wild, indigenous and underutilized food, and that much less data was found at variety/cultivar and breed level. Most data are available for Asia, followed by Africa, Oceania and America. Europe has the least data on food composition counting for biodiversity. In Oceania most of the data are compiled and published in food composition databases (User FCDB).

The indicator is a count of the number of foods with a sufficiently detailed description to identify genus, species, subspecies and variety/cultivar/breed, and with at least one value for a nutrient or other bioactive component as found in the published and unpublished literature. In order to count for the indicator, foods should include genus, species and subspecies level and below. Exceptions to this general directive are wild, indigenous and underutilized foods identified by local name with country/region/culture of origin, or a photograph or voucher sample.

The Cross-cutting Initiative on Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition has been established to measure, investigate and promote biodiversity and nutrition. Therefore, nutrition indicators are needed: an indicator on food composition, which has been developed, and one on food consumption to be developed at the expert consultation in June 2009. Yearly reporting is foreseen on both indicators.