The Biodiversity and Agriculture Initiative in Mexico (TEEB AgriFood Mexico) unites the efforts of two projects that are being implemented in the country: “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB): Promoting a Sustainable Agriculture and Food sector“(European Union-UN Environment) and” Integration of Biodiversity in Mexican Agriculture “(IKI IBA Project). It aims to recognize the values of biodiversity and ecosystem services in production systems, demonstrate its economic, social and cultural importance and provide recommendations to the public policy of the agricultural sector in Mexico, on how to integrate these values into decision making and in the planning instruments of the agri-food sector.

The AgriFood TEEB is designed to provide a detailed economic, social and cultural evaluation of complex eco-agri-food systems, demonstrating that the environment where producers operate is subject to negative and positive externalities that cause a lack of understanding of their dependence on natural capital . This initiative seeks to demonstrate that the entire agricultural chain of value (production, processing, distribution, consumption and waste) not only has impacts on the environment, socioeconomic well-being and human health, but also depends largely on these factors. Finally, the results seek to encourage key stakeholders to change decisions and behaviors, highlighting the different values of nature.

On May 30th, 2019 the Steering Committee of the initiative met for the first time in order to discuss and select two specific study topics and provide recommendations for the scope of work and the key elements for next year’s actions, considering the priority issues that were decided during the Startup Workshop in February: monocultures (eg., technified corn, avocado, palm oil, protected agriculture), agroforestry systems (coffee, cocoa, silvopastoral) and traditional systems (traditional milpa, agave mezcalero).