Landrace enhancement (‘grassroots breeding’)

In 1998, Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development (LI-BIRD), in cooperation with the Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC), Bioversity International and farmer groups, engaged in ‘grassroots breeding’ to promote conservation and use of local varieties by enhancing them for relevant traits and distributing them via formal and farmer-managed seed systems. Core components include: (1) identification of local crop diversity important for food security and/or income generation; (3) setting breeding goals based on in-depth discussion with communities; (3) collecting seed samples; (4) evaluation of collected samples; and (5) registration, seed production and distribution. Key outcomes include the development of a systematic method for landrace enhancement leading to the development of several improved varieties, e.g. of rice, millet and common beans. For some, variety release/registration proposals have been submitted to the National Seed Board (NSB) to enable formal distribution. In addition, community seed-producer groups and Community Seed Banks make the developed varieties constantly available to local farming communities. This process directly contributes to improving farmers' seed systems, promotes seed exchange and income-generation for farmers involved in seed production activities; varieties that were about to disappear are again cultivated by many farmers in large areas.