ICAR-NBPGR organized a day-long "PGR Conservation and Awareness Workshop" Koruva village, Chakarata, Dehradun in the hill state of Uttarakhand on 17th Feb 2018.

On February17, 2018, a PGR conservation and awareness workshop was organized by ICAR-NBPGR, Pusa Campus, New Delhi under a In-house On-farm project and TSP at Kourava village of Chakarata Tehsil, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, to sensitize the farmers about the importance and significance of plant genetic resources and on-farm conservation of local crop landraces and their role in sustenance of tribal livelihoods. The workshop was inaugurated by Dr. Kuldeep Singh, Director ICAR-NBPGR, New Delhi as Chief Guest. Over 150 farmers including 30% women farmers from 6 villages of Jaunsar-Bawar region of Dehradun district participated in the function. Dr RS Rathi PI of this project explained about the objective and work carried out in Jaunsar-Bawar region under the project. Dr. KC Bhatt addressed the gathering about the status of crops diversity in Uttarakhand and nutritional value of local crops. Dr. Sanjay Kumar, SMS Agronomy, KVK, GBPUAT, Dhakarani, Dehradun expressed his views on loss of local crops diversity due to climate change, introduction of HYV, etc and gave emphasis on the conservation and cultivation of local crop wealth are they belong to several valuable traits. Dr. SP Ahlawat, Head Division of Exploration explained about importance of community seed bank, nutritional security and role of PPV&FRA. Chief Guest of the function addressed the farmers about the importance of local crop landraces, their on-farm conservation and informed that our agriculture has changed in last 30 - 40 years due to effect of green revolution and frequent developments and due to impact of climate, the cropping pattern has changed drastically, hence we need to revive our old seed chain for betterment of future generations. During the session, he also interacted with the women farmers and discussed on issues related to traditional agriculture. Sh. Budh Singh, Siyana, village Koruva also expressed his views about the need of cultivation of old landraces of crops to revive the seed chain and to maintain the livelihood. In the programme Kit containing Phawda, maize Sheller & vegetable seed were also distributed to 150 farmers and seeds of local crop landraces (chwari dhan, rajama, finger-millet, proso-millet and buckwheat) were also distributed to the identified farmers.

Content by :- Dr Ranbir Singh Rathi, Division of Plant Exploration and Germplasm Collection