IAEA’s Grossi ‘Deeply Concerned’ After Israel Attack On Iran Nuclear Facilities

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA

 June 15, 2025

By World Nuclear News

The International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has told the agency’s board of governors “nuclear facilities must never be attacked, regardless of the context or circumstances, as it could harm both people and the environment”.

In a statement on Friday evening he said: “We are currently in contact with the Iranian nuclear safety authorities to ascertain the status of relevant nuclear facilities and to assess any wider impacts on nuclear safety and security. Iran has confirmed that … the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant site has been attacked in today’s strikes. This facility contains the Fuel Enrichment Plant and the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant.

“At Natanz, the above-ground part of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, where Iran was producing uranium enriched up to 60% U-235, has been destroyed. Electricity infrastructure at the facility (electrical sub-station, main electric power supply building, emergency power supply and back-up generators) has been destroyed.

“There is no indication of a physical attack on the underground cascade hall containing part of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant and the main Fuel Enrichment Plant. However, the loss of power to the cascade hall may have damaged the centrifuges there.

“The level of radioactivity outside the Natanz site has remained unchanged and at normal levels indicating no external radiological impact to the population or the environment from this event. However, due to the impacts, there is radiological and chemical contamination inside the facilities in Natanz. The type of radiation present inside the facility, primarily alpha particles, is manageable with appropriate radiation protection measures.

“At present, the Iranian authorities are informing us of attacks on the other facilities, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant; and Esfahan site, where a fuel plate fabrication plant, a fuel manufacturing plant, a uranium conversion facility and an enriched UO2 powder plant are located. However I have to inform that at this moment we do not have enough information beyond indicating that military activity has been taking place around these facilities as well which initially had not been part of military operation.”

Grossi said: “This development is deeply concerning … such attacks have serious implications for nuclear safety, security and safeguards, as well as regional and international peace and security.”

He noted previous IAEA general conference resolutions on the topic of avoiding military attacks on nuclear facilities and said: “As Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and consistent with the objectives of the IAEA under the IAEA Statute, I call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid further escalation. I reiterate that any military action that jeopardises the safety and security of nuclear facilities risks grave consequences for the people of Iran, the region, and beyond.”

Grossi added: “Yesterday, the Board of Governors adopted an important resolution on Iran’s safeguards obligations. In addition to this, the Board resolution stressed its support for a diplomatic solution to the problems posed by the Iranian nuclear programme. The IAEA continues to monitor the situation closely, stands ready to provide technical assistance, and remains committed to its nuclear safety, security and safeguards mandate in all circumstances … in accordance with its Statute and longstanding mandate, the IAEA provides the framework and natural platform where facts prevail over rhetoric and where engagement can replace escalation.”

According to Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) at least five nuclear scientists were known to be among those killed in the strikes, including Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani – who headed the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran from 2011 to 2013 – and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, president of Azad University. Israel said that its actions had been a pre-emptive move targeting what it called Iran’s programme to develop nuclear weapons and to “neutralise an immediate and existential threat to our people”. 

Iran says that its nuclear programme is peaceful and condemned what it called the IAEA board’s “anti-Iran resolution”. According to an IRNA report a joint statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran on Thursday said that in response to the resolution, a new uranium enrichment facility had been ordered in a “secure location” and “first-generation centrifuges at the Fordow enrichment site would be replaced with sixth-generation machines”.

According to World Nuclear Association’s Information Paper on Iran, the country has one nuclear power reactor operating, with construction of a second Russian-designed unit at the Bushehr site taking place. According to a presentation at the IAEA general conference last September, first concrete was expected on a third unit by the end of 2024, with another unspecified unit under construction, and further power units planned.

The nuclear power plants have not been listed among the targets of the attacks on Friday.

Iran’s enrichment facilities

Unenriched, or natural, uranium contains about 0.7% of the fissile uranium-235 (U-235) isotope. (“Fissile” means it’s capable of undergoing the fission process by which energy is produced in a nuclear reactor). The rest is the non-fissile uranium-238 isotope. Most nuclear reactors need fuel containing between 3.5% and 5% U-235 – known as low-enriched uranium, or LEU. Advanced reactor designs that are now being developed – and many small modular reactors – and research reactors, which are often used to produce medical radioisotopes, amongst other things – will require higher enrichments still – typically up to 20%.

Enrichment increases the concentration of the fissile isotope by passing the gaseous uranium hexafluoride (UF6) through so-called cascades of gas centrifuges, in which a fast spinning rotor inside a vacuum casing makes use of the very slight difference in mass between the fissile and non-fissile isotopes to separate them.

But the same technology that is needed to enrich uranium for use in nuclear power or research reactors could also be used to enrich uranium to the much higher levels (90% U-235 and above) that could be used in nuclear weapons. This means that uranium enrichment is strategically sensitive from a non-proliferation standpoint, so there are strict international controls to ensure that civilian enrichment plants are not used in this way.

Iran is known to operate enrichment plants at Natanz, about 80km southeast of Qom, and Fordow, 20km north of Qom.

According to World Nuclear Association, there are two enrichment plants at Natanz: the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, with two cascades designated for production of uranium enriched up to 20% U-235, ostensibly for the Teheran Research Reactor, and R&D purposes; and the Fuel Enrichment Plant, which is built underground.

In a quarterly report, published on 31 May, the IAEA verified that cascades at the Fuel Enrichment Plant were being fed with natural UF6 to produce material enriched up to 5% U-235. It verified that Iran was testing some centrifuges and feeding both natural and depleted UF6 into others in the various R&D production lines at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant.

According to the IAEA’s quarterly report, as of 27 May some 82 cascades were operational at the Fuel Enrichment Plant, with seven operational cascades at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant. The Fuel Enrichment Plant had produced an estimated 2671.3 kg of UF6 enriched up to 5% since its previous report. The pilot plant had produced 19.2 kg of uranium enriched up to 60%, about 243 kg with up to 5% enrichment and 453 kg with enrichment up to 2% U-235.

The Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant has 13 operating cascades, according to the IAEA, where over 166 kg of UF6 enriched up to 60% U-235 were produced since the agency’s previous quarterly report, as well as 67 kg of material enriched up to 20%, 724.5 kg enriched up to 5%, and nearly 369 kg of up to 2% enrichment.

The agency said that Iran’s total inventory of enriched uranium as of 27 May stood at 2221.4 kgU of material with an enrichment of up to 2%; 5508.8 kgU up to 5%, 274.5 kgU up to 20% and 408.6 kgU with up to 60% enrichment.

The UF6 feedstocks – natural and depleted UF6 – have low levels of radioactivity, but significant chemical toxicity, so have to be handled appropriately, as does the enriched uranium product. The materials themselves are stored in purpose-built cylinders to provide the necessary physical protection.

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World Nuclear News is an online service dedicated to covering developments related to nuclear power. Established in 2007, WNN has grown rapidly to welcome over 40,000 individual readers to the website each month, while its free daily and weekly emails both reach more than 16,000 people. These figures represent a broad audience that includes not only nuclear professionals but also journalists, researchers, opinion leaders, policy-makers, and the general public.

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Hong Kong Bans Gaming App That Police Say Incites ‘Armed Revolution’ Against China

An image from the website of the online game "Anti-United Front: Fire of War" makes reference to June 4 Tiananmen Square and Chinese army tanks. (ESC Strategic Communications Team)

 June 15, 2025

By RFA

The app makers call it a “war saga” where gamers can choose a rebel faction from Hong Kong, Taiwan and even Tibet and then play at fighting Chinese communist forces – or if they choose, fight for the communist side instead.

But it seems like whichever side you choose, it could get you into trouble in Hong Kong.

This week, the city’s police issued a stark warning against downloading the mobile app “Reversed Front: Bonfire” on the grounds that the game is “advocating armed revolution and the overthrow of the fundamental system of the People’s Republic of China.”

The police force’s National Security Department, or NSD, said in a statement Tuesday that any person who shares or recommends the app, or makes in-app purchases, may be violating articles of the city’s draconian national security law that punish incitement to secession and subversion. A person who downloads the app would be in possession of a publication with a “seditious intention.”

The statement concluded that such acts are “extremely serious offences” and that police would strictly enforce the law.

“Members of the public should not download the application or provide funding by any means to the relevant developer. Those who have downloaded the application should uninstall it immediately and must not attempt to defy the law,” it said.

Welcome to Hong Kong in 2025, where even gaming apps are in the cross-hairs of authorities.

Until a few years ago, the city was famed for its vibrant civic society and freedoms which had persisted since the territory came under Chinese control in 1997.

“It’s absurd that the government fears this game, especially when players are free to choose any faction—including the Red Army,” one gamer who goes by the alias Fu Tong told Radio Free Asia. “Their reaction just reflects an authoritarian regime’s deep fear of freedom and how brittle the system really is.”

Widening crackdown

The warning, apparently the first issued in Hong Kong against a gaming app, was the latest sign of a widening crackdown on basic freedoms that has ensued since massive anti-government protests that broke out six years ago. That movement was followed by the passage of the 2020 national security law imposed by Beijing and a law enacted by the Hong Kong legislature 2024. 

The app’s developer, ESC Taiwan, did not immediately respond to an RFA request for comment on Tuesday’s police statement. 

ESC has described itself as a civilian volunteer group that was set up in 2017 to “coordinate with overseas anti-Communist organizations and assist foreign allies with outreach and organizing efforts.” It doesn’t disclose who its members are but says they are mostly Taiwanese, with a few Hongkongers and Mongolians.

The game’s first online version was released in 2020, and a board game version launched in the same year. At the time, China’s state-run Global Times published a critical editorial accusing the game of promoting “Taiwanese independence” and “Hong Kong separatism.”

According to a person familiar with the operations of ESC, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, the developers had raised over HK$6 million (US$760,000) via crowdfunding in Taiwan and Hong Kong in 2019 to develop the game, and a portion of the game’s revenue is donated to anti-China Communist Party organizations abroad. 

Players of “Reversed Front: Bonfire” can assume the role of rebels from places such as Hong Kong, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, Taiwan and the Uyghur region trying to overthrow the communist regime. 

“Or you can choose to lead the Communists to defeat all enemies and resume the century-long march of the Communist revolution to the other side of the land and sea!” ESC says in its promo for the app.

For the Hong Kong option, numerous game characters are inspired by the city’s past protest culture. For example, one character, “Ka Yan,” hails from Yuen Long – a town in Hong Kong’s western territories – and wears blue-and-white striped tape often used by Hong Kong police. Another, “Sylvia,” wears a gas mask and a uniform printed with the slogan, “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times.” 

The game’s dialogue is also steeped in Hong Kong culture and includes an instrumental version of “Glory to Hong Kong,” a banned anthem that was popular during 2019 pro-democracy protests.

While the police statement on Tuesday appeared to boost interest in the game, The Associated Press in Hong Kong reported that the app was not available in Apple app story by Wednesday morning. It remains available in the United States.

One gamer, Andy, said that after the statement was issued Hong Kong-themed player groups within the game quickly cleared their chat logs fearing they could be trawled by authorities. 

He praised the game as reflecting current geopolitical realities, including China’s approach to Taiwan – the self-ruling island that Beijing claims as part of China. 

Supporting this game, Andy added, also allows players to symbolically “defend Hong Kong territory.”

RFA

Radio Free Asia’s mission is to provide accurate and timely news and information to Asian countries whose governments prohibit access to a free press. Content used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.

Neurotheology And The Search For Mystical Switches – Analysis

 June 15, 2025

By Sooraj S and Nikhil Seethi

Historically, humans have had a unique propensity to contemplate other-worldly phenomena, often experiencing intense emotions of awe and reverence to a ‘higher power’. The perennial question, ‘Did God create man, or did man create God?’, has fueled endless debates, particularly between theists and atheists, which have not yielded any consensus or even useful approximations to an answer. Also, many individuals have identified themselves as being ‘spiritual’ without aligning strictly with either camp, valuing their subjective, personal experiences of spirituality as meaningful truths irrespective of their objective verifiability or conformity to theological dogmas. 

The emergence of a ‘secular’ valorization of spirituality invites cognitive sciences into a compelling field of inquiry. What if modern scientific knowledge, mediated by the latest technology, can give an explanatory account of spiritual experiences and maybe even induce it? Neurotheology attempts to tackle this and explain the biological and neural underpinnings of spiritual or religious experiences such as revelation, mystical awakenings or a perceived sense of dissolution of spatio-temporal boundaries, associated with practices such as prayers, meditation and so on. While not its sole focus, a significant aim within the research program of neurotheology is to identify specific brain regions or neural structures, sometimes referred to as the ‘God spots’, that correlate with spiritual experiences. By doing so, researchers hope to understand what generates these profound experiential states in humans and bring its benefits to those who are typically deprived of such unique experiences. Neurotheology is still a nascent research field, but it promises a lot, while not being immune from philosophical scrutiny and criticism. 

So, can neuroscience really find these mystical switches in the human brain and flip them at will to invoke mystical experiences? Some scientists claimed to have done this, unencumbered by appeals to supernaturalistic explanations. For example, Michael A Persinger had conducted a series of experiments by fashioning a device (the famous ‘God Helmet’) that generated weak electromagnetic forces that focused on the temporal lobe and reportedly induced mystical experiences in many subjects. Persinger even argued, in his book ‘Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs’ (Persinger, 1987) that the exalted figures in religious history likely suffered from something akin to a temporal lobe epilepsy. The idea was that these neuronal anomalies, combined with narratives defined by cultural norms and socio-psychological conditioning, lead to what we describe as spiritual or mystical experiences. 

Subsequent studies, notably by a group of Swedish scientists, were carried out to replicate Persinger’s findings but failed to obtain the same results, leading to the idea that there is no privileged locus of brain region or structure that is uniquely responsible for mystical experiences (Biello, 2007). It became gradually clear that such experiences were correlated with activations in multiple regions of the brain, each unique to the subject and the experiences they have. While patterns do emerge, the differences that stand out might pose an impediment to deriving causal explanations, viz.in developing a solid framework that can rigorously specify how and under what exact brain or neuronal conditions would unique mystical experiences obtain and why they do not obtain under different brain states. This difficulty leaves much to substantiation dependent on anecdotal evidence or subjective reports of mystical experiences by individuals. 

Rethinking and expanding the framework

If neurotheology marks a provocative entry into the scientific study of spiritual experience, it also invites a deeper reckoning with the diverse landscapes where such experiences emerge. Early Western studies, such as Andrew Newberg’s SPECT imaging of Tibetan monks or Mario Beauregard’s fMRI scans of Carmelite nuns (Beauregard and Paquette, 2006), pursued the hypothesis that altered states of consciousness were traceable to activity (or inactivity) in specific neural circuits. These findings often implicated the parietal lobes, limbic structures, and prefrontal regions in the generation of such states, advancing the notion of a distributed ‘neural correlates of the sacred’. Yet these neural insights, while profound, remain tethered to particular cultural and theological imaginaries. To expand the search for mystical switches beyond reductionist or universalist assumptions, it is crucial to situate neurotheology in relation to the plurality of world-views that inform the noetic qualities of mystical experiences (to borrow William James’ terminology). 

In India, spiritual practices such as yogic breathing, mantra recitation, and ritual worship are not merely abstract expressions of belief, but ways of inhabiting and modulating awareness through the body. Unlike doctrinal faiths, these practices often function outside rigid theological frameworks, emphasizing lived, repeated experience over propositional truth. Empirical studies from institutions in India (Rao et al., 2018; Saini et al., 2024) have reported correlations between these practices and enhanced parasympathetic tone, emotional regulation, and even cortical reorganization. Yet their significance cannot be exhausted through biomedical outcomes alone. These traditions are anchored in a worldview where consciousness is not strictly brain-bound but is distributed—relational, atmospheric, and in many formulations, sacred. They propose a model in which cognition and divinity are not opposites but entwined states of being. As such, these frameworks not only complicate the reductionist impulses of contemporary neuroscience but also gesture toward a different epistemic orientation, one where experience is not bracketed for the sake of objectivity, but treated as a site of knowledge in its own right.

Across the Amazonian regions of Latin America, neuroscientific studies of Ayahuasca ceremonies (Ruffell et al., 2021) conducted in collaboration with indigenous knowledge-keepers, have shown activation in brain networks related to memory consolidation, emotional insight, and spiritual self-repair. But these findings are incomplete without the ontological frameworks within which these ceremonies are practiced, which are collective, ancestral, and reparative in the aftermath of colonial trauma. Similarly, trance states in West African ritual healing traditions, long pathologized under colonial psychiatry, are now being reassessed as adaptive and neuropsychologically significant states, allowing for communal cohesion, trauma integration, and reconstitution of identity.

Thus, while neurotheology began as a search for discrete ‘God spots’, the field has gradually welcomed a more nuanced recognition that mystical experience is not merely switched on in the brain but emerges from the confluence of neural possibility, cultural encoding, and existential need. Rather than seek a universal mechanism, a more constructive trajectory lies in honoring epistemic multiplicity, namely, acknowledging how postcolonial, indigenous, and non-Western traditions offer not just data but also theoretical contributions to understanding the sacred. In this view, neurotheology is less a final answer and more a meeting ground between indigenous knowledge systems and the empirical rigor of modern science. The promise of neurotheology, then, lies not in mechanizing transcendence, but in drawing maps across varied terrains of human experience, maps that are as much spiritual as they are neural, as much postcolonial as they are scientific.

Philosophical problems and human limitations 

While neurotheology shows promise in expanding our understanding of spiritual experiences through more refined imaging techniques and interdisciplinary methods, it inevitably confronts philosophical constraints. The field often claims to uphold methodological rigor and epistemological plurality by integrating insights from different spiritual traditions as well as disciplinary areas like anthropology and psychology. One might even encounter claims that neurotheology avoids ontological reductionism by focusing only on methodological reductionism which does not reify conceptual and linguistic tools and gives weight to the reality of emergent phenomena like conscious experiences. Yet even in its modesty, it cannot evade the deep philosophical issues it brushes against, most notably, the mind-body problem and the conditions for the possibility of knowledge itself.

A lot of scientists as well as non-experts, who are typically physicalists, believe that continued advances in neuroscience will eventually solve the problem of consciousness, much like a complex protein puzzle. Many physicists invoke the example of the discovery of DNA structure that displaced many of the assumptions held by vitalism, in order to discredit the mystery surrounding the problem of consciousness. It is implied therein that the discovery of more complex brain structures and its functions will eventually demystify the problem of consciousness and dispel the ‘pseudoscientific’ claims about the ‘strong-emergence’ or ‘fundamentality’ of consciousness. But this confidence stems from a philosophical misunderstanding of the mind-body problem and also rests on a category error, confusing correlation with explanation, and neural activation with experiential meaning.

The philosophical problem of consciousness isn’t just a question of identifying which regions light up on an fMRI during meditation or other unique subjective experiences. It’s a conceptual riddle about how subjective experience (or qualia) emerges from, or accompanies, physical processes in the brain. No amount of neuroimaging currently explains why a certain brain state should give rise to any particular subjective feeling, of seeing the color red or tasting mint or falling in love, let alone the sensation of divine union or self-transcendence. Nor does it even begin to address how such an experience carries enduring existential meaning for the person who undergoes it. Therefore, the problem of consciousness (or the aspect of what it is like to be an organism, as Thomas Nagel framed it) is, whether physicalists like it or not, indeed a hard one (as David Chalmers has been rightly arguing) or maybe even an irresolvable one, which is sometimes pejoratively identified as a position of mysterianism. 

The more significant approach would be then to develop a speculative, albeit empirically justified, framework to explore why certain philosophical questions are, or at least seem to be, fundamentally beyond the scope of human understanding. Only an understanding of inherent limitations, if any (as scientists now often abhor such philosophical legislations about any limits), of human cognition can shed some light on why mystical experiences are possible and why they may even appear to be wired into our very essence.

An investigation into the subjective reports of mystical experiences and its neural correlates may not yield results that can guarantee replicability or instrumental benefits. After all, expecting a consensus on the exact definition of mystical experiences or God or faith is precisely the fallacious move to externalize the deeply personal, to objectify the subjective and quantify the qualitative. Despite the materialists’ irritation towards such arguments of ‘ineffability’, it is trivially obvious that the human mind engages with realities inaccessible to its cognitive domain through a language without precision, measure or scale. It is instructive to remember Louis Armstrong’s words in this context: “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know”. 

Conclusion

Perhaps, then, the search for mystical switches is less about isolating neural triggers and more about learning how to ask differently: What does it mean to have faith? What is it that shapes the sacred? and why do certain sounds, rituals, and memories insist on persisting in the cracks of our lives? The recent movie Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler, suggests an intriguing view of transcendence that lies not in clarity but contradiction; in grief-stricken blues that mourns as it uplifts. Could neurotheology, then, reframe its inquiry, not as a quest to universalize the divine, but as an invitation to bear witness to how spiritual experience is woven through plural, polyvalent threads? And might it, by listening attentively to traditions that treat consciousness as an unfolding journey, redraw our maps of the sacred from excavation to encounter? These are not conclusions, but openings…fragments of curiosity that beckon us back toward the places where science, song, and the ineffable meet. Just as Coogler’s film’s blues-infused soul reminds us, “Everyone knows that the Blues can be both sad and happy”. Maybe faith too is, much more than being a crutch or a coping mechanism, a shadowy companion that refuses to disappear through ruins and celebrations alike. 

Sooraj S

Sooraj S is a Young India Fellow at Ashoka University and a Visiting Artist at Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Art Research.

China’s Agrobiodiversity: From Rice Terraces To Seed Banks – Analysis

 June 15, 2025

By Observer Research Foundation

By Shoba Suri

With its extensive and diverse agroecological zones, China ranks among the 12 global hotspots for agricultural biodiversity. This richness—deeply embedded in the country’s diverse landscapes and cultures—has conventionally supported food and nutrition security for a population of over 1.4 billion. However, rapid modernisation, industrial agriculture, and climate change are now significantly pressurising China’s agrobiodiversity, making it challenging to achieve sustainable agriculture and nutrition security.

One of the most symbolic examples of China’s agrobiodiversity—developed over the past 1300 years and spread across 16,603 hectares—is the Honghe Hani rice terraces in Yunnan Province. These systems embody a sophisticated form of ecological engineering, refined over generations by the Hani people and fostered through close interaction with their environment.

The rice-fish-duck symbiosis depicted below is a circular, integrated, and time-honoured agricultural practice. In this model, rice paddies produce rice and support fish and ducks,  augmenting the natural pest control and fertilisation processes. This approach reduces reliance on chemical inputs, promotes biodiversity, and offers diverse sources of food and income. Beyond their productive value, such systems also preserve local culture, foster communal labour, and uphold traditional ecological knowledge.

Rice-fish-duck symbiosis. Photo Credit: Rice-Fish-Duck Symbiosis

For China, the nutritional dimension of agrobiodiversity, including diverse crops, livestock, and microorganisms, is equally significant. In many ways, China’s Green Revolution is at the forefront of technological innovations that advance sustainable agricultural practices.. Traditional, nutrient-rich cropssuch as barley, buckwheat, millets, oats, and sorghum—often referred to as the underutilised grain crops—have played a vital role in China’s food and nutritional security.

Agrobiodiversity also plays a central role in the seed systems that underpin agricultural resilience. Chinahosts one of the world’s largest and most advanced seed/germplasm collections to enhance capacity in developing new crops and food security.  Community seed banks in China are complemented by efforts to maintain and circulate local landraces adapted to specific microclimates and cultural needs, thereby empowering rural communities to ensure seed and food sovereignty.

Despite its potential, China’s agrobiodiversity is under considerable threat from agricultural intensification and the genetic erosion of traditional varieties. Further urbanisation and land-use change have further encroached on biodiverse farming landscapes. The loss of traditional knowledge—accelerated by generational shifts and rural-to-urban migration—poses a critical risk of valuable ecological and agricultural insights being forgotten.

The policy landscape offers both opportunities and challenges for the conservation and utilisation of agrobiodiversity. China’s ‘Ecological Civilisation’ framework—embedded in its national development strategy—acknowledges the importance of biodiversity in promoting environmental sustainability. Programmes such as ‘Grain for Green’, restoring farmland to forest or grassland, and promoting agroecological practices in some regions, signal a shift toward more biodiversity-sensitive approaches. However, these efforts often remain fragmented and sometimes outpaced by the economic incentives favouring industrial agriculture.

A promising direction lies in integrating agrobiodiversity more explicitly into national food and nutrition security policies. For instance, public procurement schemes, school feeding programmes, and markets could be leveraged to support the cultivation and consumption of traditional and underutilised crops. Furthermore, dietary guidelines and public health messaging can promote food diversity rooted in cultural traditions. This would not only improve nutrition but also create market incentives for biodiversity-friendly agriculture.

Equally important is enhancing farmer participation in biodiversity conservation. Farmers are not just beneficiaries of technologies or policies – they are active stewards of agrobiodiversity. The ‘Seed to Table’ initiative in East China aims to promote sustainable agrifood systems and strengthen the linkage between the community and markets. Participatory plant breeding, community seed fairs, and farmer field schools are valuable platforms to co-create knowledge, strengthen seed networks, and enable the adaptive management of crop diversity. These initiatives are vital in China’s ethnic minority regions, where biodiversity and cultural heritage are tightly interwoven.

Technological innovations also offer potential to support agrobiodiversity. Mobile-based platforms can facilitate seed exchange, water management, weather forecasting, and biodiversity monitoring. Digital documentation of traditional knowledge and establishing open-source seed databases can help bridge generational divides to ensure the continuity of agricultural knowledge. However, adopting such tools must ensure equitable access, alongside prioritising the needs of smallholder and marginal farmers.

In conclusion, agrobiodiversity is not merely a relic of China’s agricultural past but a strategic asset for its future. As the country grapples with climate change, environmental degradation, and nutritional transformation, leveraging its rich biodiversity can help build a more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient food system. The landscapes, seeds, and knowledge embedded in China’s agrobiodiversity—from the terraced rice paddies of Yunnan to the cold-tolerant seed banks of Harbin—offer solutions that are local in character but global in relevance. Agrobiodiversity must be mainstreamed into sustainable food systems through integrated policy action and broad societal commitment. It is not simply insurance against future crises, but the living basis of daily food production and farming livelihoods.

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• About the author: Shoba Suri is a Senior Fellow with the Health Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation.
• SourceL This article was published by Observer Research Foundation

Observer Research Foundation

ORF was established on 5 September 1990 as a private, not for profit, ’think tank’ to influence public policy formulation. The Foundation brought together, for the first time, leading Indian economists and policymakers to present An Agenda for Economic Reforms in India. The idea was to help develop a consensus in favour of economic reforms.