Locality: Bhutan

Abstract: Bhutan has enormous floral diversity (both wild and domestic) in the diverse ecosystems and ecological zones of the country that has regional and global importance. Agricultural biodiversity, also known as agro-biodiversity, is a sub-set of the overall biodiversity and includes all cultivated crops and their varieties. It also “encompasses the variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms which are necessary to sustain key functions of the agroecosystem in support of food production and food security”.

Value of crop plant diversity is enormous. Genetic diversity is the key to food security and sustainable development. The wider is the diversity, lesser is the chance of total crop failure due to pest and diseases. A wider range of diversity allows a breeder in selecting the appropriate kind of materials and better is the chances for success. The value of PGR diversity in the future will be much more than what can be imagined at present, considering the global climate change and human needs.

The wealth of landraces is gradually disappearing despite the tremendous benefits and potentials we are gifted with. There are number of factors causing genetic erosion of agro-biological wealth. The various factors include displacement of indigenous landraces by new, genetically uniform cultivars, switch from diverse traditional systems to few market orientated cash crops, destruction of habitats due to urbanization, wild animal damages on crops, drought/untimely rain/shortage of irrigation facilities, change of landuse, low yield, land clearing/landslides and habitat loss/soil erosion problem, shortage of labour and erosion of food culture.

A nation wide inventory of PGRFA was carried out during 2002 and 2003 to assess and document the extent of crop genetic resources in the country. This was necessary for drawing strategic conservation and sustainable utilisation plans. Representative sites were identified cutting across the whole spectrum of agro-ecosystems present in the country, based on agro-ecological zones, other available information and in consultation with ARDCs. Inventory was carried in 2002 and 2003 by AEOs/JEOs of selected sites, ARDCs and NBC. Access database was developed and demonstrated to all ARDCs in 2002 and 2003, documentation was completed in 2005, data was analysed and gaps were identified in 2006. Incomplete and missing data were collected in 2007 and incorporated in the main database in early 2008.

Following this the National Plant Genebank at NBC initiated ex-situ conservation of crop Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA) and currently houses over 2700 accessions of 55 species of cereals, legumes, oil seeds, a few vegetables and fodder collected from all over the country.