“Biodiversity means both the biological differentiation among individuals of the same species in relation to environmental conditions and the coexistence in the same ecosystem of different animal and plant species that creates a balance through their mutual relationships.”
What is meant when we hear about biodiversity? The term is certainly suggestive and, even without consulting the vocabulary, evokes an objectively fascinating image. It describes our world and conveys both the concept of variety in nature and of the whole in which we are immersed. But it does not explicitly “talk” about evolution and interaction with environment to which it should always be linked in order to stimulate critical thinking, curiosity, insight, and reflection. Because, if we were to think of biodiversity in a static way, we might even come to believe that the various current forms of life have always been so and that those that have disappeared are so only because of man’s wickedness or some tragedy. Even of human beings we might in that sense think that they have simply continually reproduced themselves always identically and independently of the environment. We might believe that we are the same as our parents, that the dog we chose at a breeding farm-after seeing a Walt Disney movie-is of a breed that has always existed, that the grain with which companies make you flour, bread, cookies has always been a tall, lush ear of corn .
To understand how foolish, naive, and short-sighted it is to think in this way, one need only look around and reflect instead on what has been happening continuously every moment for millions of years.

Fossil evidence and stages of elongation of the Giraffa camelopardalis neck
By Melinda Danowitz, Aleksandr Vasilyev, Victoria Kortlandt and Nikos Solounias
Published:October 01, 2015 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150393
The mere act of mating, or in general of reproduction of any species, constantly gives rise new “living beings” that carry with them a genetic inheritance of characteristics reminiscent of their origin, but they are not faithful and unchanged photocopies of their “generators,” they are not clones, but rather a combination of them. Therefore different
Billions of combinations of genes continue at every moment to generate in turn what, with a quick, panoramic summary, we call biodiversity, but which, on closer inspection, we might read as evidence that, the nature of which we are a part, is constantly changing, little by little, creating, generation after generation, micro-adaptations to environmental conditions
To wish to maintain the current biodiversity is not only basically impossible, but also short-sighted.
However, in the biodiversity around us, we can choose some animal and plant species whose nutritional, medical and functional efficiency we can exploit.
Choices that, without false moralism, we have been making for centuries to ensure our survival as a human species. Today, however, we do so more efficiently than we used to.
But let’s try to bring the critical spirit into play.
and observe how the term “biodiversity” is used instrumentally.
Like any word that evokes nature in some way, “biodiversity” has become a suggestive way to focus attention even in a dramatic sense by pairing it with the term “loss”
They resort to this kind of semantic forcing by organizations that decide to raise awareness of the importance of “maintaining biodiversity” among their audiences. They do this by portraying it in a way that is not quite correct, because in reality there is nothing more obvious and trivial than the fact that nature as a whole is constantly changing and nature (humans included) is “biodiversifying” by abandoning, replacing, and modifying biological choices that are no longer appropriate for varied environmental conditions.
But by studying nature to understand it, indulge its qualities or enjoy it, humankind has over time developed at least two different scientific approaches to the biodiversity of which it is a part
- the study of the spontaneous one, which “merely” catalogs, studies and tries to ideally defend the entire biodiversity -spontaneous precisely- of the planet;
- the refinement of the induced one, concentrating on selecting from the existing ones the most suitable species to provide nourishment, companionship, scientific developments.
In particular, food-induced biodiversity has in recent years generated stances, opposed to it, from environmentalists and associations dedicated to the dissemination of a culture based on the small, local, artisanal, … that oppose such practices to those of organizations that instead focus on ensuring large quantities of food for large populations. On this then, it is necessary to make some common sense and petty economic clarifications
The only way to keep the cost of large-scale breeding and cultivation sustainable and make the results economically accessible to most people is to choose, care for and safeguard the most efficient species. Which has required and requires, years of research and constant scientific effort without this interfering with the development of wild biodiversity which, as such, is external to large-scale food production chains.
Among the many who promote microcultures we find, for example, Slowfood, which acts by implying that biodiversity is endangered by large-scale farming or cultivation. Slowfood certainly has the merit of keeping attention high on the need and usefulness of safeguarding the knowledge and transmission of cultivation and breeding practices otherwise destined to be lost. So, too, for the protection of animal and plant species that, without someone to cultivate, protect or raise them, would risk being lost. Slowfood’s meritorious action also allows small farmers to carve out a certain independence of livelihood, especially in small, non-urbanized communities with whom they can share production.
But to speak of loss of biodiversity as the motivation for these -legitimate- choices pitted against mass market operators, we find is more the sly representation of an enemy that is not an enemy. A kind of marketing strategy, functional to one’s own positioning, that nonetheless collides and has to do equally with concepts of economics and income redistribution.
Those who compare small-scale food production with the global economy only induce confusion that comes in handy for purposes other than defending biodiversity. Artisanal products should not compete with industry, but only prove to be an alternative that nevertheless is characterized by certain differences that should be kept in mind, two of which are very relevant in a negative sense:
- the first concerns the higher consumer costs, which necessarily fall on those who can afford that choice, implying a class exclusivity that precisely excludes those who cannot
- the second is of a sanitary nature, because artisan activity-unlike large-scale activity-is hardly able to guarantee sufficient sanitary conditions to protect itself and production at all stages. In addition, the widespread presence of micro realities prevents an equally widespread and effective sanitary-type control
Consumer welfare and health safety are closely linked to a supply chain’s ability to prevent all kinds of health risks, and in this, small operators are often unintentionally exposed to precisely these risks, which mainly affect the end consumer who, understandably fascinated by the bucolic, however, risks nasty surprises.
It should be emphasized that it is precisely the large breeding and farming operations, as a result of their aims and objectives (excluding a priori the manipulation and fraud by which every activity in this world is traversed) that contribute to making the provision of healthy and accessible food more economical and sustainable. In the case of the poultry sector, for example, the almost maniacal care of breeding methodologies has made it possible to select through simple observation, breeds that have a natural tendency to high feed conversion, that is, to reduce the kilograms of feed needed to grow the animal by 1kg.
These are results that on the individual animal concern 10 to 30 grams. A small difference, but when multiplied by the entire herd, it has a major impact on the sustainability of the economy of the entire system and the price we pay to feed ourselves.
In conclusion, at least three things should be established:
- that biodiversity protection would remain a scientific subject deputed to noncommercial entities or small-scale breeders who manage to work on protected niches by then being able to charge those few numbers they produce. But for reasons regarding the health aspects just mentioned, it would also be appropriate for those areas not to be delegated to provide food chains as they would require health protection measures designed specifically for each species;
- more information should be disseminated that the breeds, which animal rights activists and environmentalists claim to safeguard, are nothing but breeds selected in past ages by our ancestors or by nature itself. To give an example in the poultry field, the Livornese breed, the Yorkshire or the Padovana are breeds named precisely because they were selected in those places in past ages. They were successful because they were selected based on the conditions of those times: type of housing and feeding, predominant diseases, etc. To advocate, therefore, for poultry breeds of the past and against current breeds raised on farms is to disregard the fact that current breeds are derived from those that were already the result of natural or human-induced selection in the past. Similar argument can be made for any other species or varieties available in nature;
- it would be mutually beneficial and desirable for all actors active in the care and exploitation of our planet’s biodiversity to talk to each other and exchange their specific knowledge and skills. This would be the fastest way to grow and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their respective sectors by turning competition into cooperation. The whole Planet would enjoy it.