Want sustainable food? Listen to Indigenous farmers

Oscar Castañeda is Senior Vice President for the Americas at Heifer International, a development organization.

Next week biodiversity experts will reconvene in Rome and attempt to break last year’s deadlock in negotiations for funding to protect nature.

During the U.N. biodiversity talks, known as COP16, held in the Colombian city of Cali in October,  Indigenous Peoples and local communities finally won a historic and long overdue right to voice their perspectives. Delegates agreed to include them in key decisions about environmental protection.

Yet at a time when biodiversity is vanishing faster than ever, Indigenous Peoples’ wisdom is still waiting to be heard. As the COP16 biodiversity talks resume in Rome to resolve questions of finance among other topics, negotiators have their first chance since the Cali summit to listen to the original stewards of natural resources.

And as the world strives to square food production for a growing population with conserving nature, bringing Indigenous farmers to the forefront at these negotiations is especially important.

For centuries, Indigenous Peoples have been the unsung stewards of our planet’s natural wealth, demonstrating how to live in harmony with nature. For example, across the Americas, campesinos – often Indigenous farmers who incorporate ancestral knowledge in food production – follow customs and practices that are rooted in a spiritual connection to land and water, carrying a sacred responsibility to safeguard nature while feeding their communities. Their traditional knowledge provides vital insights that, when combined with modern tools, financing, and support, can offer a model for more sustainable food systems and biodiversity conservation.

Despite evidence of the effectiveness of Indigenous agricultural practices in natural resource conservation, food and livelihood security, Indigenous Peoples receive just a fraction of biodiversity funding. This glaring mismatch is more than a missed opportunity to protect vulnerable communities from the impact of environmental degradation.

Global agriculture has much to learn from Indigenous communities that cultivate food systems to regenerate rather than deplete the land. Rooted in ancestral knowledge, their methods echo a truth the modern world often forgets: sustainability is not a new innovation; it’s an ancient practice.

Many Indigenous communities living in forested areas grow their food within forests instead of cutting them down, creating conducive environments for both natural habitats and societies to thrive. Such farming techniques have inspired the broader global use of approaches such as agroecology, agroforestry, and regenerative farming.

However, at the same time, local communities are among those hardest hit by the global deterioration of natural environments as a result of unsustainable practices. Agriculture-led deforestation, for example, accelerates biodiversity loss and increases the prevalence of climate-related disasters. When combined with science-based innovations like digital tools and improved seeds, Indigenous-led regenerative farming practices can achieve biodiversity goals and support sustainable livelihoods.

For example, in eastern Mexico, farmers reimagined the age-old milpa – a traditional Mayan system of planting several crops in a forested area – by integrating Mexican Creole hairless pigs into their farms. This increased the availability of organic fertilizers and improved soil fertility and as a result, corn harvests more than doubled per hectare, forests were left untouched, and biodiversity thrived.

In Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula, farmers collect and preserve native corn seed species as a means of biodiversity conservation. As a result, communities were able to recover their seeds and re-establish their farms when a hurricane hit the region in 2002. Increasing investments in innovations that help Indigenous farmers identify the best adapted seeds for preservation can strengthen the resilience of global food systems and preserve biodiversity – including agricultural biodiversity – for future generations.

And the Green Business Belt (GBB) Signature Program also supports farmers to scale forest management efforts while improving livelihoods. In Guatemala’s northern Alta Verapaz, embracing agroforestry transformed cacao production into an engine of opportunity, helping 62% of farming households increase their incomes. These practices are not only restoring ecosystems but also reviving valuable cultural heritage.

In the face of growing threats to the environment and without adequate funding, local communities cannot widely share or effectively implement their regenerative agricultural techniques. As the Cali Fund is rolled out, prioritizing Indigenous-led initiatives isn’t just ethical - it’s essential. The fund should support communities and initiatives that protect and leverage traditional knowledge to deal with biodiversity loss.

It’s not enough to pay lip service to the importance of Indigenous Peoples in the sustainable management of natural resources. The upcoming U.N. biodiversity talks must empower them — with funding, policies, and respect — to lead the way. The solutions to biodiversity loss and food insecurity are already here; we need only the courage to listen and act.