Agro-Biodiversity Conservation & Socio-cultural Focus

Agricultural biodiversity includes all components of biological diversity of relevance to food and agriculture and all components of biological diversity that constitute the agricultural ecosystems, technically the agro-ecosystems: the variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms, at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels which are necessary to sustain key functions of the agro-ecosystem, its structure and processes.

Our conservation efforts can be broken down into two categories: in-situ and ex-situ conservation.

In-situ Conservation

 This is on-farm conservation, where farmers would get the opportunity to conserve seeds for cultivation in their farms. it will lead to evolutionary process of crop-adaptation and give farmers more control over their genetic resources.

Ex-situ conservation

Defined as off-farm conservation, where indigenous varieties are stored in repositories outside the farm, ex-situ conservation is an important initiative for extensive and wide-spread effort. Ex-situ conservation excludes the critical role of farmers as conservers and selectors of seeds, which add great value to the development of well adapted indigenous varieties that have evolved in their natural surroundings.