Agriculture is the biggest driver of forest and biodiversity loss, including of diversity crucial to healthy diets and nutrition.
Top


Impact Area:
Environmental health & biodiversity
Increasing productivity in food systems while staying within environmental boundaries and maintaining biodiversity.


About
A third of the world’s soils are degraded, and agriculture accounts for about 70% of global freshwater withdrawals.
A healthy natural environment and biodiversity are critical for the long-term sustainability of food systems, and human health.

Cargele Masso
Impact Platform Director
Cargele Masso is IITA’s COMPRO-II Project Leader since July 2012. Before his current assignment with IITA, Cargele worked as a regulatory officer in Canada.
Objectives
Through research and innovation, CGIAR aims to address these challenges and contribute to collective global targets for Environmental Health and Biodiversity:
- Stay within planetary and regional environmental boundaries: consumptive water use in food production of less than 2500 km3 per year (with a focus on the most stressed basins), zero net deforestation, nitrogen application of 90 Tg per year (with a redistribution towards low-input farming systems) and increased use efficiency, and phosphorus application of 10 Tg per year.
- Maintain the genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants, and farmed and domesticated animals and their related wild species, including through soundly managed genebanks at the national, regional, and international levels.
Activities
To contribute to these collective global targets, CGIAR Initiatives will:
- Use modern digital tools to bring together state of the art Earth system observation and big data analysis to inform co-design of global solutions and national policies for staying within planetary boundaries on water use, nutrient use, land use change, and biodiversity.
- Cost-effectively improve management of water, soil, nutrients, and biodiversity in crop, livestock, and fisheries systems, coupled with higher-order landscape considerations as well as circular economy and agroecological approaches.
- Focus on the biodiversity function of genebanks and breeding to reduce environmental footprint, e.g. less water or pesticides, to help stay within planetary boundaries and to reduce local water stress, pollution, biodiversity loss, and undesirable land use change.
All CGIAR Initiatives will contribute to Environmental Health and Biodiversity. Below, browse a selection of Initiatives that primarily contribute to this Impact Area.
Featured
INITIATIVES

Innovations
Launch the Innovations Explorer to see more innovations contributing to this and other Impact Areas:

News
Related News
-
Inclusion is as big a goal as transformation in Multifunctional Landscapes
Multifunctional Landscapes Science Program21.07.25-
Biodiversity
-
Environmental health & biodiversity
A Reflection by Sarah Freed , Co-lead of the Area of Work on Gender, Youth…
Read more -
-
Neglected No More: Why Climate-Smart Underutilized Foods Belong on School Meal Menus
The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)18.07.25-
Environmental health & biodiversity
As highlighted during the 2024 Global Child Nutrition Forum in Japan, integrating neglected and und…
Read more -
-
The Ethiopia Green Legacy Initiative embarks exemplary landscape restorations: Evidence from the Gurage and Wolaita Zones of Ethiopia
The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)16.07.25-
Environmental health & biodiversity
The “deploying Diversity for Resilience and Livelihoods” project has documented the success stor…
Read more -
-
CGIAR's Accreditation to UNEA: Strengthening Science for Global Environmental Policy
Multifunctional Landscapes Science Program15.07.25-
Biodiversity
-
Environmental health
-
Environmental health & biodiversity
CGIAR, the world’s largest agricultural research partnership, has recently been accredited as an i…
Read more -
-
Digging deeper: How soil microbes are shaping sustainable agriculture in Kisumu and Vihiga, Kenya
The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)14.07.25-
Environmental health & biodiversity
Far from being inert ground, soil is a biologically active ecosystem critical to agricultural sustai…
Read more -
-
Multifunctional Landscapes that Incentivize Green Innovations and Improve Livelihoods
Multifunctional Landscapes Science Program10.07.25-
Biodiversity
-
Environmental health
-
Poverty reduction, livelihoods & jobs
Thriving Landscapes, Vibrant Futures Blog Series #2 Sustainable landscape transformation will not …
Read more -