Art & Agriculture
This site is dedicated to the interaction of art and agriculture. The focus is on biodiversity, nature, nutrition and the interaction between urban and rural life. These topics concerns all of us. This page is intended to show different views – first of all artistic interpretations – on this topic.
At this initial stage it’s a search for traces, knowledge and possible cooperation partners. The approach focuses essentially on methods of artist research and is looking for the interchange between this apparently so different sectors.
Key Facts
More than 6000 plants species have been cultivated for food.
Fewer than 200 make major contribution to food production globally, regionally or nationally.
What is Biodiversity?
The air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat all rely on biodiversity.
It is the variety of life on Earth, in all its forms and all its interactions. It is a broad term and the most complex feature of our planet and it is the most vital. “Without biodiversity, there is no future for humanity,” says Prof David Macdonald, at Oxford University.
Biodiversity is comprised of several levels, starting with genes, then individual species, then communities of creatures and finally entire ecosystems, such as forests or coral reefs, where life interplays with the physical environment. These myriad interactions have made Earth habitable for billions of years.
Biodiversity represents the knowledge learned by evolving species over millions of years about how to survive through the vastly varying environmental conditions Earth has experienced.
“Each higher organism is richer in information than a Caravaggio painting, a Bach fugue, or any other great work.”
Prof Edward O Wilson
Most wildlife is destroyed by land being cleared for cattle, soy, palm oil, timber and leather. Most of us consume these products every day. Choosing only sustainable options helps, as does eating less meat, particularly beef, which has an outsized environmental hoofprint.
Another approach is to highlight the value of biodiversity by estimating the financial value of the ecosystem services provided as “natural capital”.
source: The Guardian, 2018