Agro Biodiversity Hotspots in India

• Agrobiodiversity is the variety of life that farming depends on. It results from the interaction of environment, genetic resources, and the management practices of culturally diverse people.
• It is the product of both natural selection and human invention, built up over millennia.
• India has identified 22 agro-biodiversity hotspots, the regions where this variety is richest.

Agro Biodiversity

• It has three layers:
  • Genetic resources and species used for food, fodder, fibre, fuel and pharmaceuticals, down to varieties and breeds.
  • Non-harvested species that support production, such as soil microorganisms, predators and pollinators, and those in the wider environment that sustain agro-ecosystems (agricultural, pastoral, forest and aquatic).
  • The diversity of the agro-ecosystems themselves.

Benefits of Agrobiodiversity

• Raises productivity, food security and economic returns.
• Eases the pressure of farming on fragile areas, forests and endangered species.
• Makes farming systems more stable, robust and sustainable.
• Contributes to sound pest and disease management.
• Conserves soil, and increases its natural fertility and health.
• Reduces dependence on external inputs such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
• Improves human nutrition, and provides sources of medicines and vitamins.
• Conserves ecosystem structure and the stability of species diversity.

Significance of Agrobiodiversity for India

• India’s promising genetic resources include:
  • Rice: Konamani (Tamil Nadu), Agni bora (Assam) and Pokkali (Keralam, formerly Kerala).
  • Bhalia wheat of Gujarat, which holds a Geographical Indication from 2011.
  • Guchhi mushroom of Himachal Pradesh.
• Native farm animal breeds are rich too. Older counts gave cattle 42, buffaloes 15, goats 34, sheep 43 and chicken 19.
  • The ICAR-National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources listed 242 indigenous breeds by November 2025: cattle 55, buffalo 22, goat 43, sheep 46 and chicken 21, among others.
• Genetic diversity of crops, livestock and their wild relatives is fundamental to improving varieties and breeds. It can help in the following ways:
  • Combating hunger. India ranked 102 of 117 countries on the Global Hunger Index in 2019, and 102 of 123 in 2025, with a score of 25.8.
    • Hunger is defined by caloric deprivation, protein hunger, and hidden hunger (deficiency of micronutrients).
  • Malnutrition. Nearly 47 million children, or four in ten, did not meet their potential because of chronic undernutrition or stunting.
    • Stunting stood at 35.5 per cent of children under five in the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019–21).
    • It leads to diminished learning capacity, more chronic disease, and low birth-weight infants from malnourished parents.
    • The Global Nutrition Report counted 614 million anaemic women worldwide and more than half of Indian women aged 15–49. The Survey puts the Indian share at 57 per cent.
  • Nutrition-sensitive farming and bio-fortified foods.
    • Moringa (drumstick) carries micronutrients, and sweet potato is rich in Vitamin A.
    • Some varieties of pearl millet and sorghum are rich in iron and zinc.
• This serves UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger) and the Aichi Biodiversity Target on conserving the genetic diversity of plants, farm livestock and wild relatives.
  • The Aichi Targets ran for 2011–2020. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (December 2022) has since replaced them, with 23 targets for 2030.

Challenges to Agrobiodiversity

• Crop genetic resources are lost when new varieties are adopted without conserving traditional ones. Bt cotton is an example.
• High-output breeds for meat, milk and eggs raise similar concerns. Crossbreeding foreign with indigenous breeds erodes a genetically diverse pool.
• A narrow food base adds risk:
  • Of 2,50,000 identified plant species, about 7,000 have historically been used in human diets.
  • Today only 30 crops form the basis of world agriculture.
  • Just three species, maize, rice and wheat, supply more than half the world’s daily calories.

Agro Biodiversity in India

• India has documented over 811 cultivated plants and 902 of their wild relatives.
• Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) are outstanding landscapes of aesthetic beauty that combine agricultural biodiversity, resilient ecosystems and valuable cultural heritage. The Food and Agriculture Organization designates them.
  • The world total has grown from 37 sites to 102 by the 2025 award ceremony.
  • Three are Indian:
    • Kashmir (saffron, 2011): saffron on the Karewas of Pampore, over about 3,200 hectares.
    • Koraput, Odisha (traditional agriculture, 2012): subsistence paddy on an Eastern Ghats highland plateau, resting on tribal knowledge, with sacred groves that help preserve plant genetic resources. Deforestation and mining threaten it.
    • Kuttanad, Keralam (below sea-level farming, 2013): paddy and fishing on wetlands reclaimed from delta swamps, with coconut gardens. Rising salinity threatens its paddy.
• Ex situ safeguards sit alongside farmers’ fields. The National Gene Bank of the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources dates from 1983, and its seed collection had reached about 4.3 lakh accessions by 2016.

Agro Biodiversity Hotspots in India

• Agro-biodiversity hotspots are regions of exceptional genetic diversity in cultivated crops, domesticated animals and their wild relatives.
• The list comes from a task force of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority, set up in October 2007 under M. P. Nayar.
  • Its report, published in 2009, identified 22 hotspots in seven agro-geographical zones.
  • Its purpose is practical: farmers and communities conserving diversity in these areas can be recognised and rewarded from the National Gene Fund, under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001.
• The Authority separates a broad agro-biodiversity region from the narrower hotspot area inside it. The Chotanagpur region, for instance, takes in all of Jharkhand with Mayurbhanj and Sundargarh in Odisha, while its hotspot districts are fewer.
• It also sets each hotspot against its tribal population, since such communities hold much of this diversity. Tribes form about 64 per cent of the people in Arunachal Pradesh, 85.5 per cent in Meghalaya, 94.7 per cent in Mizoram and 31.7 per cent in Chhattisgarh in its count.
• Key areas include the Western and Eastern Himalayas, the North-Eastern Hills, the Brahmaputra Valley, the Western Ghats, and coastal regions such as Koraput and Kuttanad.
• These regions are vital for food security, climate resilience and traditional farming systems.
• They differ from biodiversity hotspots, which are defined by wild species and threat. An agro-biodiversity hotspot is defined by farm genetic wealth and the people who maintain it, and so it also takes in plains such as the Gangetic Delta.
• The table follows the Authority’s list. Districts are as it names them, and several have since been divided or renamed.

• Hotspots are not evenly weighted across India’s farm regions. The list leans towards hill, tribal and rainfed tracts, where traditional varieties survive because high-input farming arrived late, along with old river deltas.
• They also overlap the agro-ecological regions: the Cold Desert and Islands hotspots match regions 1 and 20 closely, while the Deccan and Malabar hotspots span several.
• The spread of hotspots matters for planning. Conserving landraces in farmers’ fields keeps them evolving with climate, which a gene bank alone cannot do. This links to the conservation of biodiversity in general and to the seed system that farmers rely on.