Agriculture has been predominant in Nepal, employing 65% of the population and contributing 34% to GDP (2019). Yet large sections of the population still suffered from food deficit and poor nutrition. This was further aggravated by the detrimental effects of a changing climate and a weak seed sector that often limited farmers’ climate-adapted varietal choices. Historically, farmers relied on rich agro-biodiversity by saving and exchanging local seeds, which was being marginalised at an alarming rate. Despite the huge potential of local plant genetic resources (PGR) for climate change adaptation, the majority of climate-resilient local crops were underutilised as they were largely overlooked by formal seed research and extension. More than 95% of the variety development research in Nepal on rice, maize, wheat, potato, legumes, oilseeds, fruits, and vegetables was based on foreign genetic material.

Sowing Diversity, Harvesting Security (SD=HS) was a four-year project funded by SIDA jointly implemented by LI-BIRD and OXFAM Nepal in four districts of Sudurpashchim Province. It aimed to contribute to improving food and nutrition security and resilience by enhancing the capacity of smallholders, women, and indigenous farmers to access, develop, and market seeds of climate-resilient crops and varieties, along with policy advocacy for strengthening farmers’ seed systems and the implementation of Farmers’ Rights. Indigenous peoples and smallholder farmers were supported to enjoy their Farmers’ Rights and to access, develop, and use plant genetic resources to improve their food and nutrition security under conditions of climate change.

The project was aligned with four interconnected pillars:

1. Empowering smallholders for the management and use of PGR through Farmer Field Schools (FFS) on Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) approaches.
2. Establishing and strengthening Farmers’ Seed Enterprises (FSEs).
3. Promotion of Neglected and Underutilized Species (NUS).
4. Evidence-based policy advocacy.

The project benefited more than 43,266 beneficiaries (25,959 women and 10,816 youth) and contributed to mainstreaming participatory plant breeding work in Sudurpashchim Province and farmers’ variety registration at the national level.

The key achievements of the project included:

1. Forming farmers’ groups and conducting 160 farmers’ field schools (FFS) on Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) and Participatory Variety Evaluation (PVE), reaching 3,877 farmers, 98% of whom were women, where farmers were engaged in testing and evaluating more than 84 advanced lines and new varieties of crops (such as wheat, potato, rice, and soybean), and were improving four landraces (two in rice and one each in wheat and soybean).
2. Supporting the registration of local landraces in the national varietal inventory. LI-BIRD conducted varietal trials, and the data generated from Participatory Varietal Evaluation (PVE) facilitated the registration of three landraces, namely Jhumka, Lalanadi, and Jorayal Basmati rice varieties.
3. Facilitating seed production through three farmers’ seed enterprises (FSEs) that engaged over 200 youths. The FSEs were established in 2019, and seed production rose from 34.9 tons in 2019 to 450 tons in 2023, with the monetary transaction of the seed business increasing from NPR 2.8 million to NPR 9.5 million.
4. Supporting three community seed banks with seed-threshing and grading machines to ensure the quality of seeds.
5. Facilitating the policy formulation process of the Revised Seed Regulation 2023, ensuring a dedicated provision for farmers’ variety registration and a separate provision for registering exotic varieties. LI-BIRD also contributed to drafting the Sudurpashchim Provincial Seed Act 2022 through expert consultation workshops and established institutional partnerships with Sudurpashchim and Karnali provinces through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Following the MoU, leading FFS on PPB was mainstreamed in their regular programme.
6. Organising 12 workshops and meetings on agrobiodiversity, local seed systems, and farmers’ rights under the SD=HS project in collaboration with governments, CSOs, and development partners. Through the SD=HS project, LI-BIRD also participated in international platforms such as the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) GB and COP 27 in 2022 and the Global Symposium on Farmers’ Rights in 2023 to share Nepal’s progress on conservation of local crops and securing farmers’ rights.
7. Developing a local crop-based food recipe book and video documentation to enhance the production and consumption of local crops. Similarly, LI-BIRD developed a training manual on community seed bank management.