Communities and their agrobiodiversity: priorities for agriculture in Uttarakhand Himalaya, India

Poor scientific understanding of traditional farming systems and related socioeconomic issues seriously impede the identification of solutions for sustainable agricultural development in the Himalayan region. Traditional agrobiodiversity management plays a key role in coping with the uncertainties prevailing in the Himalaya. There is an urgent need to bring desirable changes in agricultural policy, research and development, land use and breeding approaches to mountainous regions. This paper describes the general characteristics of agrobiodiversity, its significance, status, rate of change and causal factors, ecological, social and policy dimensions and their impacts on agrobiodiversity loss and strategies for management of the Himalayan agroecosystems.