Even as attempts by Jharkhand legislators to take away a large chunk of land from Ranchi-based Horticulture and Agro Forestry Research Programme (HARP) goes ahead, a Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust has expressed concern over the future of HARP, and has curiously enquired if something could be done to avoid it.According to the documents available with The Indian Express, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust Cary Fowler has “informally” communicated its concern over the future of HARP with the Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the parent organisation under which HARP operates.“I wanted to check with you to see if this report was indeed accurate. If so, it seems very unfortunate,” Fowler is learnt to have communicated with the ICAR Director General, citing the news reports published in The Indian Express over this issue. Fowler was curious whether “something can be done”.The Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT), which was founded by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Bioversity International, is the only organisation working worldwide to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide.GCDT’s attention to the issue is obvious from the fact that HARP is set to lose about 88 acres of land if the Jharkhand Government goes ahead with its plan to acquire land from the institute for building bungalows for about 115 MPs and MLAs.The land in question is home to as many as 5,250 varieties of mango and litchi trees, 6,500 trees more than 30 years old, eight greenhouse nurseries, each with 4,000-5,000 guava and jackfruit trees and a gene bank developed over 20 years. The land also hosts an indigenous collection of germplasm base of 239 varieties of mango and litchi, which is an important biodiversity collection of subtropical fruits. GCDT's informal communication comes after HARP wrote to the National Biodiversity Authority to declare it a National Repository of the subtropical fruit germplams, which will provide the institute a long-term legal protection against any damage to its collection of germplasms.
