On-farm Conservation Approaches for Agricultural Biodiversity in Nepal

Agricultural biodiversity is the basis for agricultural research and development. This paper is based on the survey across the country along with the field implementation and action research on different conservation approaches over the years and locations. Management of agricultural biodiversity is being initiated in Nepal through ex-situ, on-farm, in-situ and breeding strategies by National Agriculture Genetic Resources Center (National Genebank) from 2010. National Genebank has implemented on-farm conservation across the country. Different approaches are community seed bank, community field genebank, household seed bank, household field genebank, village level field genebank and school field genebank. In addition to these, landrace enhancement program and recognition of agro-biodiversity rich farmers have also contributed on conserving APGRs. Identification of agro-biodiversity rich farmers have been initiated in collaboration with different governmental and non-governmental organizations across the country. Strong network among these farmers is supposed to establish for effectively managing APGRs on-farm. Agro-biodiversity conserved by such farmers is called household genebank, which consist of seed storage (household seed bank) and household field genebank. There are more than 100 CSBs in the country and some of them are conserving local genetic resources. Eight community field genebanks have been functionalized for conserving recalcitrant seeds and vegetatively propagated crop species. Village level field genebank has been established by NGO in Makwanpur district to conserve banana and taro. In this approach, different households grow different landraces, maintaining maximum diversity within a village. In some areas, school field genebank has been established by growing local APGRs in school areas. This helps to conserve APGRs, educate the students, earn the income and make environment beautiful. Genebank also encourages farmers to reintroduce the landraces from the National Genebank. Accessioning these APGRs and training to farmers and farming communities are necessary to effectively and efficiently conserving and utilizing APGRs on-farm

Evaluation of Naked Barley Landraces for Agro-morphological Traits

Naked barley (Hordeum vulgare var. nudum L.) is a traditional, culturally important, climate-resilient winter cereal crop of Nepal. Evaluation of the naked barely genotypes for yield and disease is fundamental for their efficient utilization in plant breeding schemes and effective conservation programs. Therefore, to identify high yielding and yellow rust resistant landraces of naked barley for hilly and mountainous agro-ecosystem, twenty naked barley landraces collected from different locations of Nepal, were evaluated in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications during winter season of 2016 and 2017 at Khumaltar, Lalitpur, Nepal. Combined analysis of variances revealed that NGRC04902 (3.46 t/ha), NGRC00886 (3.28 t/ha), NGRC02309 (3.21 t/ha) and NGRC06026 (3.10 t/ha) were the high yielding landraces and statistically at par with the released variety 'Solu Uwa' (3.15 t/ha). The landraces namely NGRC00837 (ACI Value: 1.86) was found resistant to yellow rust diseases. Landraces NGRC06034 (131.7 days) and NGRC02363 (130.8 days) were found early maturing and NGRC02306 (94.36 cm) was found dwarf landraces among tested genotypes. These landraces having higher yield and better resistance to yellow rust need to be deployed to farmers' field to diversify the varietal options and used in resistant breeding program to improve the productivity of naked barley for Nepalese farmers

Geographical indication

Agricultural products are generally associated with their place of production and are influenced by specific local, geographical factors such as climate and soil. A geographical indication (GI) is a sign (or name) used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess unique qualities or a reputation associated with the product of the origin (WIPO 2004). The qualities, characteristics or reputation of the product should be essentially due to the place of origin. GI is an intellectual property that protects the product of the area and ultimately helps to promote conservation of agrobiodiversity on-farm and boost economy of local community. The well-known examples of GIs in South Asia include Darjeeling tea, Basmati rice, Himalayan water, Alphonso and Sindhri mangoes, Bhutanese red rice, Pakistani shu (wind proof woolen fabric) and Ajrak (designs from Sindh), jasmine (Hom Mali) rice. Until now, there is no any GI protected products in Nepal. Government of Nepal has approved the National Intellectual Property Right Policy (2017) which includes Copyrights, Patents, Industrial design, Trademarks, GI, Varietal protection, Trade secrets and Traditional knowledge policy (MoICS 2017). Among these policies, GI gives exclusive right to a region or a landscape (eg village, town, region or country) to use a name for a particular product with certain characteristics that corresponds to their specific location. There are more than 100 agricultural products (Joshi et al 2017) which have already established their reputation representing their GIs. Malla and Shakya (2004) have identified and listed 87 potential products for geographical indication (GI) protection in Nepal. Most of the products possess greater cultural and age-old traditional values. Important indigenous crop landraces and their products linked with particular geography, which should therefore, be protected with GI by developing suitable legislation for their market promotion, on-farm conservation and livelihood enhancement of local communities. For GI promotion, Geo-linked popular crop landraces and their traits need to be found out for their potential trade promotion and value addition

Diversity rich solutions

Every household is diverse and diversity can be observed within household in terms of crops, varieties and landraces, soil type, food preferences and preparation methods, knowledge and practices related with production management of agrobiodiversity and other genetic resources. Farmers are practicing agricultural practices that promotes the use of diversity such as growing mixture of landraces, composting, fertigation. Modern agriculture focuses on developing large scale uniform technology eg use of urea, mono-genotype variety. Such system puts pressure and disturbs the ecological balance causing high risk for crop failure and genetic erosion. Any technological option with greater diversity is less risky, more sustainable and higher adaptability in agriculture. Diversity rich solution is any technology or problem associated solution that considers diversity as an option and address problems with inter and intra level diversity as well as combinations of different components. it also includes multiple technology for a single problem. Some examples are broad genetic base variety, cultivar mixtures, compost (made from different species), biopesticide (made from different species), etc. Diversity rich solution is in practice since 2014 in Nepal with the objective of conserving agrobiodiversity, promoting ecologically oriented sustainable agriculture that also enhances ecosystem services

Good practices for agrobiodiversity management

Native agricultural genetic resources have been generally under-valued, therefore, some initiatives have been taken through Global In-situ agrobiodiversity project joinly implemented by NARC, LI-BIRD and Bioversity International since 1997 in Nepal for conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity on-farm. Global in-situ project (1997-2006) has developed many good practices for agrobiodiversity management which are published in On-farm Management of Agricultural Biodiversity in Nepal: Good Practices 2006 (B Sthapit, P Shrestha and M Upadyay, eds). A good practice is a process or methodology or action that is effective and successful; environmentally, economically and socially sustainable; technically feasible; inherently participatory; replicable and adaptable, that has been proven to work well and produce good results. It is a successful experience tested and validated in achieving its objective. For further widening the scope of good practices in the country, NAGRC, LI-BIRD and Bioversity International have generated, tested and adapted a number of good practices in four sites, Jungu, Dolakha; Ghapanpokhara, Lamjung; Hanku, Jumla; and Chippra, Humla through a project Integrating Traditional Crop Genetic Diversity into Technology: Using a Biodiversity Portfolio Approach to Buffer against Unpredictable Environmental Change in the Nepal Himalayas , commonly called as Local Crop Project (LCP) from 2014 to 2019. Good practices listed here are well tested and adapted by the communtiies in the fields, shown their positive impact, shared and discussed among the relevant stakholders. Project team have tested and validated many good practices, however, we have included 22 good practices that are worth sharing for its dessimination and mainstreaming. These practices, though specially based on eight crops (rice, bean, barley, foxtail millet, proso millet, amaranth and buckwheat), can be widely applicable to other agricultural genetic ressources in different locations, national and globally

Germplasm rescue and repatriation

Due to many factors such as increase access and availability of modern varieties, change in market preferences, low productivity of native landraces and climate change, crop landraces are threatened and are at the risk of losing from the fields. Still there are many rare and unique landraces conserved by farmers in different parts of the country. Native agricultural genetic resources that are being grown in red zone areas are all endangered. Unique and rare landraces as well as landraces grown in small areas by few farmers are also endangered. Different natural calamities also make native landraces endangered. Such landraces are lost if further conservation action did not take place. Exploration and collection of such endangered landraces is called germplasm rescue. National gene bank started rescue since 2014 for buckwheat diversity in Dolpa district

Germplasm rescue and rebuilding local seed systems in red zone areas

Native agrobiodiversity become endangered and even lost due to natural disasters in red zone area such as earthquake that hit Nepal on April and May 2015. Endangered agricultural genetic resources should be rescued and revival of disrupted local seed system was essential for sustainable and productive agriculture in earthquake affected areas. The objectives of this paper are to document methods employed to rescue germplasm and rebuild local seed systems in earthquake affected areas to restore lost crop diversity and strengthen local seed systems. Among 14 severely hit districts by April 2015 earthquake in Nepal, 10 districts were selected for germplasm rescue and rebuilding local seed system. We surveyed households and sensitized relevant stakeholders. Earthquake affected areas were declared as red zones and status of crop landraces were assessed through survey, five cell analysis and focus group discussion. Three germplasm rescue techniques, namely direct rescue, diversity fair and indirect rescue were applied. Local seed systems were rebuilt through diversity fair, diversity block, seed exchange, repatriation and diversity kits. Collected accessions were characterized, multiplied and conserved in National Genebank and community seed banks. About 5-10% of total local crop diversity (based on the landraces) were lost due to earthquake in these districts. A total of 921 accessions of 61 crops along with 284 rare and endangered crop landraces were collected and rescued from 35 VDCs of 10 severely earthquake affected districts. Climate analogue sites and climate smart germplasm were identified for some of earthquake affected areas, and five landraces of four crops were repatriated. Participatory seed exchange, diversity fairs and 200 diversity kits (containing 3 to 5 varieties) were employed to revive the local seed systems. Farmers’ preferred landraces were conserved in Community Seed Bank in Lamjung and Dolakha and all collections were conserved in Naional Genebank, Khumaltar, Nepal. The study concludes that multiple approaches and tools are necessary for germplasm rescue and rebuilding local seed systems from red zone area &nbsp

On-farm agrobiodiversity measurement and conservation

Total agrobiodiversity of any area is necessary to plan the implementation of agricultural and environmental projects and activities. Diversity is most for advancing agriculture development, however, modern agriculture has accelerated the replacement of old age crop diversity. Agrobiodiversity index and measures are commonly used and estimated for crop and animal species, landraces and sites. These are useful for locating sites, crops and custodians of agrobiodiversity. Agrobiodiversity includes crop and plant; livestock and fish, insect and microbial genetic resources that are cultivated, semi domesticated or wild. Diversity are ated properly that leads to choose the conservation approaches effectively

Advances in fruit breeding in Nepal

Nepal has spent about six decades on fruit development and research in different species. Fruit breeding particularly local and exotic germplasm collection started after 1950s and has gained momentum after the formation of commodity programme in 1972 AD. Major researches in the past were focused on indigenous and exotic genotype collection, evaluation, selection, propagation protocol standardization and adoptive trials. Some good ground works have already been done in major fruits such as apple, pear, plum, persimmon, kiwifruit, citrus, litchi, guava, pomegranate, walnut, papaya, banana and mango. The major public institutions involved in fruit breeding are Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) following Agriculture and Forestry University. Some of the private nurseries like Everything Organic Nursery, Kavre and Technology Demonstration Centre of ICIMOD, Lalitpur were also involved in introduction and maintenance of indigenous and exotic fruit species. National Centre for Fruit Development, Kirtipur; Tropical Region Horticulture Centre, Nawalpur; Temperate Horticulture Farm, Satbanj, and Horticulture Farm, Marpha collected many local and exotic fruits and maintained at field gene bank. Horticulture Research Station, Rajikot has introduced 25 spur type apple cultivars and maintained in field gene bank. National Citrus Research Programme, Paripatle has introduced, collected and maintained 130 genotypes including exotic and indigenous landraces of citrus. Two varieties of acid lime ‘Sunkagati-1’ and ‘Sunkagati-2’ have been released and one variety ‘Terhathum Local’ has been registered. ‘Khoku Selection’ of mandarin orange has also been registered. Banana varieties 'Malbhog', 'Willium Hybrid' and 'G9' has been selected by participatory varietal selection and registered.  To strengthen fruit breeding in the nation, NARC needs to be restructured with special focus on fruit researches. Establishment of national fruit commodity programs along with establishment of Tropical Fruit Research Station in Province 2 and Temperate Fruit Research Station in Province 5 at national level can streamline NARC's fruit breeding researches