Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, NARO

Biodiversity in agriculture provides ecosystem functions and services that form the basis of agricultural production, such as the regulation of organic matter and moisture in soil and pollination by wildlife. On the other hand, the conversion to a large-scale, centralized production system has degraded agricultural land and its surrounding biodiversity. In order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is necessary to promote agriculture that takes biodiversity into consideration. However, the development of sustainable agriculture has been hampered by insufficient understanding of the production benefits and management effects of conserving and utilizing biodiversity, as well as methods for conveying the value of biodiversity-friendly agricultural products to consumers. In order to overcome this situation, the Biodiversity Conservation and Utilization Group is developing technologies to objectively evaluate the biodiversity of agricultural land through environmental DNA analysis and conducting research to develop a certification system for agricultural products that takes biodiversity into consideration. In addition, by utilizing local biological resources such as pollinators and developing technologies to manage agricultural ecosystems that are robust against the invasion and spread of alien species, we are aiming to establish production technologies with low management costs based on ecosystem functions and services.