{"id":94845,"date":"2023-10-03T17:31:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-03T15:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aprifel-pp.mentalworks.biz\/?post_type=article_revue&p=94845"},"modified":"2023-10-03T17:31:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T15:31:24","slug":"the-mediterranean-diet-case-biodiversity-a-key-requirement-for-food-diversity-and-food-security","status":"publish","type":"article_revue","link":"https:\/\/aprifel-pp.mentalworks.biz\/en\/global-fv-newsletter-article\/the-mediterranean-diet-case-biodiversity-a-key-requirement-for-food-diversity-and-food-security\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mediterranean Diet Case: Biodiversity, a key requirement for food diversity and food security"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Author<\/strong>\n
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\n Konstadinos Mattas<\/strong>\n Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Since the world population is steadily increasing, the question of how to feed people and provide adequate and healthy food to eliminate hunger and malnutrition constitutes a crucial social challenge. This constant population growth may be considered as an underlying threat to sustainable development. The Mediterranean diet has been widely recognized as a biodiversity and healthy nutrition resource to support sustainable development and food security. A recent work explored for the first time, biodiversity in terms of food plants species, subspecies, varieties, and races and addressed food plant diversity differences between the Mediterranean- and Western-type consumption patterns. A higher agricultural biodiversity in the Mediterranean region as well as a higher diversity in food plants species subspecies, varieties, and races was observed. The authors conclude that biodiversity could constitute a prerequisite for dietary diversity, and hence nutrition security.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, feeding the steadily growing population<\/strong> and providing adequate and healthy food<\/strong> is a crucial social challenge<\/strong> (Van Dijk et al., 2021<\/a>) as by 2050, the global population<\/strong> is expected to rise from 7.7 billion<\/strong> in 2019, to around 9.7 billion<\/strong> (Serra-Majem et al., 2020<\/a> ; Adam et al., 2021<\/a>). According to estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO<\/span>), agro-food production <\/strong>will have to increase by<\/strong> almost 50%<\/strong> to accomplish consumers\u2019 requirement<\/strong>s and satisfy the increasing demand<\/strong>, especially for meat and processed meat products (FAO<\/span>, 2017<\/a>). Thus, this constant population growth <\/strong>may be an underlying threat <\/strong>to sustainable development<\/strong> because it stresses natural resources through overexploitation, intensive farming, and land fragmentation (Maja et al., 2021<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides, the current agro-food system<\/strong> is considered as a major driver<\/strong> of environmental degradation <\/strong>and climate change<\/strong> (Dudley et al., 2017<\/a> ; Sala et al., 2017<\/a>), as intensified management practices together with the overexploitation of inputs may endanger the conservation of the terrestrial ecosystems and have severe impacts on biodiversity (Crenna et al., 2019<\/a> ; Henry et al., 2019<\/a>). Therefore, dietary guidelines have to combine the health-nutrition aspect with the environmental aspect<\/strong> for providing food for all in a healthy and sustainable way. The traditional Mediterranean diet <\/strong>addresses both health and environmental<\/strong> issues because plant-based dietary patterns with low consumption of animal foods were proven to contribute to health maintenance<\/strong> and to help mitigate biodiversity degradation<\/strong> (Serra-Majem et al., 2020<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In light of biodiversity decline, a recent study (Mattas et al., 2023<\/a><\/strong>), funded by the EU BioValue Project<\/span>