Farmers of the Bhadyal Panchayat in Himachal’s Chamba district have won the Plant Genome Saviour Community Award instituted by the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority (PPVFRA), Government of India.
Chamba farmers were awarded for conserving three land races of maize.
Union minister for agriculture and farmers welfare Narendra Singh Tomar conferred the prize on a group of farmers from Bhadal in a ceremony held in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Chaudhary Sarwan Kumar Himachal Pradesh Agriculture University (CSKHPAU) vice-chancellor Ashok Kumar Sarial said the farmers of the Bhadal panchayat have been growing Haachi (white), Retti (red) and Chitkuri (popcorn) land races of maize since generations.
“The three varieties of the local maize grown in Bhadal are of superior quality and rich in protein and sucrose,” said Sarial.
He said it was for these special quality traits that the land races were patented by the (PPVFRA), New Delhi.
The authority recognises and honours farmers and their community maintaining and conserving such important land races and varieties of various crops in the country.
Sarial said a team of scientists from HPAU led by JK Sharma, former head of seed science and technology department, had collected the seed from the farmers, evaluated and identified the specialty quality traits and got these registered with PPVFRA giving right to the farmers of royalty on account of commercial exploitation of quality traits directly or indirectly by introgression for improvement of existing maize cultivars.
{{/usCountry}}Sarial said a team of scientists from HPAU led by JK Sharma, former head of seed science and technology department, had collected the seed from the farmers, evaluated and identified the specialty quality traits and got these registered with PPVFRA giving right to the farmers of royalty on account of commercial exploitation of quality traits directly or indirectly by introgression for improvement of existing maize cultivars.
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