Speakers at Berlin's Green Week event have called for greater agricultural diversity, which they said is essential in order for us to surmount challenges such as climate change, environmental degradation and hunger.

Green Week ran from Friday to Monday in the German capital. The famous agricultural show also played host to debates with input from delegates including government ministers, NGO representatives and industry personalities.

German Agriculture Minister Dr. Hans-Peter Friedrich, who hosted the summit for the first time, underlined that eliminating hunger from the world and realising the human right to adequate food is currently the greatest challenge the world faces. In their final communiqué, agriculture ministers from around the world meeting at the event stated that, in view of climate change and the limited resources available, agriculture needs to be made more resilient. In order for this to happen, they said supporting diversity and sustainability in agriculture is essential.

Dr Friedrich said, "Preserving agricultural diversity is not a luxury: it is a matter of survival. Plant varieties, once lost, cannot be recovered. We must therefore conserve our genetic resources… and make better use of them. "

Greek Agriculture Minister Athanasios Tsaftaris also spoke of the need to preserve different models of farm. As Greek agriculture still relies, in part, on family farming enterprises, Tsaftaris said he sees them as a guarantee of diversity. The Agriculture Minister continued, "We want to help farmers to develop multifunctional cultivation systems."  He said farmers should be encouraged to join together to give them added strength and negotiating power in the face of players with more clout in the supply chain.

In their final communiqué, the ministers of agriculture declared that they would support the preservation and increased use of the diversity of genetic resources, production methods and farm types.

Berlin's Green Week has also become a traditional venue for environmental and sustainable food groups to stage protests against food scandals, GM crops and unsustainable industrial farming practices. An estimated 30,000 people demonstrated over the weekend, calling for fundamental changes in the food system.