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Landscape products link to low-input practices and traditional ecological knowledge, and have multiple functions supporting human well-being and sustainability. Here we explore seven landscape products worldwide to identify these multiple functions in the context of food commodification and landscape sustainability. We show that a landscape products lens can improve food systems by fostering sustainability strategies and standards that are place-sensitive, and as such can mitigate conflicts related to food production, social justice and the environment. Co-management strategies and information policies, such as certification, labelling, product information and raising of awareness could accelerate, incentivize and catalyse actions to support landscape products in the context of sustainability strategies., (© 2022. Springer Nature Limited.)

The COVID-19 crisis is worsening food insecurity by undermining informal food chains. We focus on impacts involving the informal food chains that incorporate the resilience-enhancing biodiversity of food and agriculture known as agrobiodiversity. Our analysis addresses how informal food chains and agrobiodiversity are impacted by policies and interventions amidst COVID-19 disruptions. Our methodology relies on research in Peru with a focus on the cites and surrounding areas of Lima, Arequipa, Cusco, Huancayo, and Huánuco. We extend these insights to similar challenges and opportunities across western South America and other word regions. We utilize the four-part Agrobiodiversity Knowledge Framework to guide our examination of agrobiodiversity-related processes that interconnect governance, nutrition, agroecology, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results detail three links of informal food chains that are being disrupted and yet can offer resilience. These are food retailing, logistics and transportation, and seed systems. Utilization of the Agrobiodiversity Knowledge Framework cuts through highly complex issues to elaborate key food-security difficulties facing informal systems and how they can be strengthened to provide more resilience. We identify the specific roles of agrobiodiversity in resilience-enhancing processes that need strategic policy and program support. Results identify ways to augment the resilience of informal food chains using agrobiodiversity and the empowerment of social groups and organizations in urban food systems and rural communities. We conclude that the disruptions triggered by the global COVID-19 pandemic highlight the need to use agrobiodiversity as an instrument for resilience in informal food chains., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (© International Society for Plant Pathology and Springer Nature B.V. 2020.)

Integrating the conservation of biodiversity by smallholder farmers with agricultural intensification is increasingly recognized as a leading priority of sustainability and food security amid global environmental and socioeconomic change. An international research project investigated the smallholder agrobiodiversity of maize (corn) in a global hotspot (Bolivia) undergoing significant intensification. Peach-based intensification was pronounced (300-400%) and prolonged (2000-2010) in study areas. Intensification and maize agrobiodiversity were found to co-occur within smallholder landscapes. Interactions of these field systems did not trigger land-change tipping points leading to landrace extirpation. By 2010 maize landraces in the study areas still demonstrated high levels of taxonomic and ecological biodiversity and contributed significantly to this crop's agrobiodiversity at national (31%) and hemispheric (3%) scales. Social and ecological resilience and in situ conservation of the maize agrobiodiversity by Bolivian smallholders was enabled through robust linkages to off-farm migration; resource access and asset capabilities among both traditional and nontraditional growers; landrace agroecology and food uses; and innovative knowledge and skills. The smallholders' resilience resulting from these linkages was integral to the conditional success of the in situ conservation of maize agrobiodiversity. Environment-development interactions both enabled smallholders' agrobiodiversity resilience and influenced the limits and vulnerability of agrobiodiversity. Scientific policy recommendations regarding land-use planning and sustainability analysis are targeted to specific Río+20 priorities for agrobiodiversity.