Brief

Let us conserve and exchange seeds: celebrating traditional crop diversity of the Nepali lowlands

author(s)

Vernooy, Ronnie

regions
  • Nepal
original file download
full citation

Vernooy, R.; Shrestha, P.; Gauchan, D.; Bhusal, A.; Gurung, R.; Pudasaini, N.; and members of the Community Seed Banks Association of Nepal (2019) Let us conserve and exchange seeds: celebrating traditional crop diversity of the Nepali lowlands. Bioversity International, Rome, Italy; LI-BIRD, Pokhara, Nepal;Community Seed Banks Association of Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal 6 p. ISBN: 978-92-9255-131-5

A seed fair is an activity to create awareness about and appreciate local crop diversity, exchange seed and related knowledge, and celebrate farmers’ efforts to conserve agrobiodiversity. It takes considerable time and effort to organize a seed fair. This brief describes the seed fair organized at the Agyauli Community Seedbank, Nawalparasi in the southern region of Nepal.

About 30 members of 10 community seedbanks from the terai (the southern lowland) region of Nepal came together for this. Apart from exchanging seeds of traditional crop varieties, they also shared stories about the socio-cultural, religious, spiritual, nutritional and medicinal values of their varieties. The recent formal registration of the Community Seed Banks Association of Nepal (CSBAN) was also celebrated.