Agrobiodiversity plan helps farmers in Sarawak cope with climate change

FARMERS in Sarawak stand to gain more economic opportunities following an initiative being developed by the Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research to support the use of agrobiodiversity by indigenous and rural communities in coping with the effects of climate change, Sarawak's State Agriculture Research Centre Semenggok senior research officer Jean Teo GK said yesterday. !She said the large number of rice varieties still maintained by a great number of farmers represented a rich opportunity for Sarawak and its farming communities by providing livelihood options through social, economic and ecological opportunities and helped improve both environmental and community resilience.

"The seed genebank aims to provide an improved service to the members of the Bidayuh community at Gahat and of the Iban one at Skrang by identifying and making available rice varieties that will help these farmers to adapt to the changes they are facing, especially floods and drought," she told Bernama here.

The project is being supported by the Christensen Fund, the Sarawak Institute of Agriculture Scientists (SIAS) and the Department of Agriculture.

She said the work sought to directly benefit the farmers as a better understanding of the value and the use of diversity could help improve nutrition, provide additional economic opportunities, improve ecosystem services and support local culture and knowledge that were often at risk of being lost forever. !By attaching a Geographical Indication (GI) to certain indigenous rice varieties, including as the Bario, Biris or the purple Bajong, she said, the market potential of these products could also be tapped besides offering opportunities to the farmers for income and maintenance of their traditional customs.

GI protection ensures authenticity, consistency, quality assurance of the product and safeguard of the Intellectual Property Rights of the farmers. She was confident that involvement and empowerment of the farming communities in the identification, maintenance and exchange of relevant materials would be a process that could create a relationship between the genebank and the farmers. "Farmers are also scientists, custodians of precious diversity and traditional knowledge which we should learn about and respect," she said.

For that reason, Teo said, a Free and Prior Informed Consent agreement was signed between the indigenous people and the genebank managers so as to safeguard the intellectual and material property of the community members. She said a programme of further cooperation would be developed to improve maintenance and quality of existing crop materials and access to new materials following an evaluation by communities and genebanks.

Bernama