Rebuilding local seed system and safeguarding conservation of agrobiodiversity in the aftermath of Nepal 2015 earthquake

A study was conducted from July 2015 to December 2017 to rebuild local seed system and safeguard conservation of agrobiodiversity in the aftermath of earthquake through rescue collection, conservation and
repatriation of endangered crop landraces from 10 earthquake affected districts. The process employed
several methods, approaches and processes combining rescue missions with qualitative and quantitative
assessments techniques and tools. The process helped to assess status of diversity of traditional crops,
identify endangered, extinct and rare crop landraces, document and characterize their unique agronomic
traits and develop and validate methodology for conservation of native crops by linking on-farm and ex-situ
approaches. A total of 921 accessions of 61 crops were collected from 35 VDCs of 10 severally earthquake
affected districts. The process has identified 104 lost crop landraces and rescued 284 rare and endangered
ones and conserved them in national Genebank. Some of the farmer demanded crop landraces are repatriated
back to local communities and also conserved in community seed banks in affected districts.The process
therefore helped to restore lost diversity, revive and strengthen the local seed system and safeguard
biodiversity of native crops to adapt to more extreme and changing climatic condition