Varietal registration is the fundamental step to enable legal pathways for commercialization of a particular crop variety. Seed Regulation (2013) of Nepal have a dedicated provision (Annex 2-Schedule D) to register local crop landrace and commonly known as a “Relaxed Provision” for varietal registration. According to this provision, registration proposal can be developed by a farmer/farmer’s organization by compiling single season agronomic data from the farmer’s field and submit to variety release and registration sub-committee (VRRSC) of the National Seed Board for registration process. Schedule D proposal format have been designed in very simpler format so that farmers can approach the process independently. Though the higher-level ambience of farmer’s variety registration has become more favorable, ground level realities are far behind. Farmers or field level officials do not have enough knowledge and understanding about Schedule D provision and technical capacity to compile information in a systematic manner. Very little effort has been made by the concerned agencies to bring this relaxed provision widespread and in practice. However, 11 farmers native varieties of six different crop species are approved by the national seed board in march 2021. In order to replicate exemplary achievement, some other potential farmers native varieties are identified by the farmers with the help of indigenous seed system project. Among them, Madale Kankro is one of the elite lines of local cucumber mostly growing in parbat, kaski,baglung and mygdi districts of Gandaki province. For facilitating the registration of this variety, 2 days training was organized on 15th and 16th Falgun, 2078 at Maramche Kaski by National Agriculture Genetic Resources Centre (NAGRC) of NARC with the funding support of SDC Indigenous Seed System Project.
Photo: Madale Kankro growing women farmer at Maramche,Kaski
There were altogether 24 participants representing all the custodian farmers of Annapurna community seed bank who are directly involved in conservation and seed production of Madale Kankro. This program was facilitated by Pradip Thapa (Technical Officer, NAGRC). There were 3 resource persons from National Genebank, Directorate of agriculture research, Lumle and LI-BIRD Nepal. The program was scheduled for 2 days comprising eight technical sessions. In the first day after inauguration of the training, Mr. Pradip Thapa from NAGRC delivered the sessions on status of conservation and utilization of native agro-biodiversity in Nepal and policy, guidelines, and procedure for registration of farmers native varieties in Nepal. Mr. Ramesh Acharya from DOAR, Lumle made the session on principles of quality seed production and seed certification procedure of local crops and Mr. Shree Prasad Neupane from LI-BIRD Nepal shared their experience, learnings and challenges faced during the registration of farmers native varieties. He added on techniques of field data collection and registration proposal development procedure of Madale Kankro.
Second day of the training was continued with the presentation and discussion session. Two groups of farmers were formed to discuss about field data collection and registration proposal development of Madale Kankro. They were gathered the information about origin, history, special traits, reasons behind registration and cultivation practices of Madale Kankro and presented with the help of brown paper. After presentation, all the resource persons gave their comments and feedbacks for finalization of the registration proposal. At last Mr. Balaram Poudel (President, Annapurna community seedbank) concluded the 2 days training with the commitment of registration proposal development of Madale Kankro and submit to VRRSC in coming year.