Page 8 - Book of Abstracts

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Welcome to 5 International Scientific Conference DOI: https://doi.org/10.15414/2021.9788055224015

The global population tripled in the 20 century, and water use increased sixfold. Up to
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2050, water consumption is expected to increase by 400 % in production and by 130 % in
domestic use. Drought can aggravate the plenty of water. Drought will affect more people than
any other natural disaster. At the beginning of this century, the average annual crops area under
drought increased from 11.6 million hectares to 25.1 million hectares, representing an increase
of 116 %. As many as 90 % of all disasters are water-related, and floods have been the most
common global natural disasters in the last two decades. Up to 2050, the number of floods with
adverse material consequences will increase significantly in many countries of the world due
to climate change, deforestation, wetland loss and rising seas
(https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/global/wash_statistics.html,
https://inweh.unu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Global-Water-Crisis-The-Facts.pdf).
Food security is one of the world's major problems. The problem has many contradictions.
According to FAO statistics from 2020, almost 795 million people went hungry worldwide – 10
million more than in 2018 and almost 60 million more than five years ago. The report also
predicts that the COVID-19 pandemic could increase the number of hungry people by more than
130 million people. According to the latest UNEP report, 1/3 of food and agricultural products
are discarded each year without reaching the table of customers and consumers. Mankind
discards more than $ 1 billion worth of food each year. In the US, about 40 % of food ends up in
waste. In Europe, more than 100 million tonnes of food are discarded each year.
According to the FAO forecast, humankind will have to increase food production 1.5–2.0
times up to 2050 to ensure food security for 9 billion people, which has already been difficult
to achieve today. If this is ensured, CO2 emissions into the atmosphere will increase by 12–20
%, thus climate change will be affected.
The forests condition is related to food security. The world forest area decreased by 178
million hectares between 1990 and 2020. Of the 60,000 different tree species, about 17 500 are
already on the Red List of Threatened Species according to the International Union for
Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) https://www.iucnredlist.org/resources/sowt. Worldwide,
more than 1 billion people are dependent on wild plant and animal products, such as wild meat,
edible insects, edible plant products, fungi and fish, which often contain high levels of essential
micronutrients. The value of forest foods as a nutritional resource is not limited to low- and
middle-income developing countries. More than 100 million people in the European Union (EU)
regularly consume wild foods. About 2.4 billion people in cities and the countryside use wood
energy for cooking (The State of the World's Forests 2020 – ReliefWeb).
Human health and well-being are closely associated with forests. At present, more than
28,000 wild species are registered in forest ecosystems, which are used in traditional but also
in modern therapy, cosmetics and other purposes. Visits to the forest environment have a
proven positive impact on human physical and mental health. In many countries of the world,
health is improved by already organized visits to forests (“swimming” in the forest air), building
healing ecosystems, agroforest parks, healing meadows and other forms for improving the
environment, especially in cities but also in rural areas.
We do not mention in this very brief overview other world's problems because of
intimidation. These are real problems that are directly and indirectly related to both
biodiversity and agrobiodiversity. The possibilities of the scientific community in each country
are so limited that it is not possible to solve these problems.
This international conference aims to create more space and conditions for a broader
discussion and search for all available solutions for the conservation and use of
agrobiodiversity within the possibilities that research teams in individual countries and
workplaces have. Research teams usually focus only on solving a specific biological problem of
a plant species. That's right. But it would be appropriate for research teams to go beyond the
research barriers and connect research results to practical applications, conditions and current
societal challenges not only to improve nutrition, health and quality of life, but also to areas
related to spiritual human development, and of humankind.

5 International Scientific Conference Agrobiodiversity for Improving the Nutrition, Health, Quality of Life and |7
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Spiritual Human Development
November 3 2021
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