Biodiversity plans need genebanks

A new FAO policy brief analyses how the 78 revised National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) submitted to the CBD as of February 2026 treat agrifood systems.

The headline numbers: All 78 NBSAPs looked at include agrifood-related targets and actions: 63% of all national targets are implemented through agrifood-related actions, and 36% of all planned actions (4,381 of 12,332) relate to agrifood systems. I think that’s pretty good. Togo tops the list at 80% of its actions being agrifood-related, built around agroecology, sustainable forest management and genetic resource use.

The genetic resources for food and agriculture (GRFA) angle: Of the 55-item typology of agrifood actions tracked, sustainable use of GRFA appears in 74% of NBSAPs and conservation of GRFA in 70%, so both are relatively well covered. But two other pieces of the puzzle lag: inventory and characterization of GRFA sits at only 49%, and access and benefit-sharing of GRFA at 48%. So countries seem to be readier to commit to using and conserving genetic resources than to the maybe less glamorous work of cataloguing what they have or sorting out benefit-sharing arrangements.

The report’s six policy recommendations essentially argue for turning these paper commitments into funded, monitored action, particularly flagging aquaculture, agroecology, rights-based governance, and finance as areas needing a bit of a push.

This is a genuinely thorough policy analysis: 78 NBSAPs coded against a 55-item action typology is real work. But to me it was a little frustrating that twelve pages on agrifood systems never get to grips with the infrastructure that actually keeps that agricultural biodiversity alive. Protected areas are mentioned, but there’s nothing specifically on national or international genebanks or on-farm conservation; no Plant Treaty and its access and benefit-sharing system. I can’t believe none of these were mentioned in NBSAPs. Conservation and sustainable use of GRFA end up as generic, high-level line items in a typology, without much sense of what “conservation” looks like in practice, or who’s actually doing the inventorying that only half of countries have committed to.

It’s solid policy-text analysis, but it stays close to the page — a report on commitments on biodiversity in and for agrifood systems that doesn’t really recognize that a global genebank system is being built to help carry them out.