Chennai :

More than 120 seed conserving farmers from 15 states across the country have congregated on the Anna University campus here to showcase a variety of quality seeds of different crops such as paddy, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables besides cotton as part a three-day National Seed Diversity Festival.

The festival began on Friday.

Stalls in the festival display rare varieties of seeds with exceptional qualities such as drought tolerance, submergence tolerance and nutritional superiority across different types of crops.

In all, more than 3,000 varieties of seeds are on exhibition at the venue.

The festival is organised by Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), and this is the fourth edition of the festival. The first three editions of the festival were held in New Delhi, Chandigarh and Hyderabad during the last three years.

Highlighting the importance of crop diversity and traditional seed varieties, both for farmer’s livelihood and consumer health, are the two main objectives with which the festival is being organized.

Experts will talk about agriculture and health during the festival. It also has traditional food, stalls, terrace gardening session, pottery training and sales, natural dyeing, hand spinning, seed ball making, drinking water purification, composting techniques, traditional games and activity spaces for children.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Chennai News / by P. Oppili / June 09th, 2017