ABSTRACT
There has been remarkably limited empirical research on the contribution of biodiversity to diets, nutrition and health. The most consistent evidence available is for the presence of a small, positive relationship between cultivated biodiversity and dietary diversity, at least among poor, subsistence-oriented households and in areas with limited market access. Intervention strategies to increase cultivated biodiversity (as part of nutrition-sensitive agricultural programs) have been shown to have modest positive impacts on dietary diversity, particularly when combined with a strong focus on behaviour change communication and women´s empowerment. However, there is little evidence available to indicate that these programs lead to sustained improvements in nutrition and health outcomes. The principle of dietary diversity is generally supported by evidence from large-scale nutritional epidemiological studies, although, given the long-standing emphasis in dietary guidelines on the importance of consuming a diverse diet, the limited explicit attention given to dietary diversity and overall diet quality in this literature is surprising and unfortunate. Given current public and private sector, as well as policy interest, in the role of biodiversity in supporting healthy diets and nutrition, more robust evidence is urgently needed. There needs to be collaboration across disciplines to enable a more dynamic systems approach, more large-scale and long-term study designs, a greater focus on methodological rigour, and more attention to under-studied populations and settings, as well as to the nutrient and non-nutrient composition and contribution of diverse foods, including neglected and underutilized cultivated and wild foods.
