A Philippine-based agency has entered in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the International Plant Genetic Research Institute (IPGRI) for a cooperation on agricultural biodiversity conservation which is essential in warranting food security and sustainable development.

A five-year cooperation, the MOU of Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) in Los Baños with IPGRI involves human resource development and community-based action research and case studies on biodiversity conservation, natural resource management, and international networking.

It will also include technical assistance and policy studies on intellectual property rights for plant genetic resources.

The Philippines is finding the need to buttress its effort in conserving agricultural biodiversity since biodiversity, a natural resource base and a component of the ecosystem, is the source of genetic materials for food, medicine, clothing, and shelter.

Without preserving the ecosystem, food production may be adversely affected, and the poor severely harmed.

But techniques are available as part of biodiversity conservation. For instance, farmers have, farmers have accepted that the mixture of crops can sustain nutrients in the soil - one row of glutinous rice is added in between four to six rows of irrigation and chemical-intensive hybrid rice.

Percy E. Sajise, IPGRI regional director, said that the natural workings of the ecosystem is worth billions of dollars which when lost will result in food shortage.

The destruction of bat caves in order to derive lime (used for cement as construction material) in the extinction of durian fruits since bats are the pollinators of durian fruits.

To realize the immense value of the balancing work of biodiversity, Sajise said that beneficial biological agents such as pollinators are actually estimated to have a cost of $40 billion per year in the United States alone. Biological nitrogen fixation agents cost $50 billion per year.

"All in all, agents of biodiversity services account for US$100-$200 billion per year in the US alone!" he said.

IPGRI, based in Malaysia, advocates the exchange of plant materials between countries, believing that the exchange of these materials is important in sustaining basic food commodities.

"The more we provide access to plant genetic resources and harness the value of these materials at the hands or closer to the hands of farmers, the more that we will be effective in alleviating poverty and hunger," he said.

It is enough to simply increase the numbers and kinds of plant species since this does not always lead to sustainable development. The wide propagation once of the golden snail in the Philippines, for example, even destroyed rice crops, reducing food availability.