Conservation of India’s Agrobiodiversity Towards Increasing Food, Nutritional and Livelihood Security

India is rich in agrobiodiversity and considered to be one of the centres of origin of food crops, oilseed crops, horticultural crops, spices and medicinal plants. Biodiversity and agriculture are strongly interrelated, and the country has around 811 cultivated plants and 186 breeds of livestock and poultry. Some of the challenges India is facing in terms of loss of agrobiodiversity include: chemical-intensified agricultural farming and increasing replacement of locally adopted and traditionally grown cultivars by high-yielding modern varieties, soil degradation, fragmentation, excessive tillage, inappropriate crop rotation, water scarcity, post-harvest losses, natural disasters and climate change impacts. The objective of the present study is to increase agrobiodiversity of India by conserving the landraces, wild varieties, folk varieties, cultivars, domesticated stocks and breeds. To undertake this study, a policy analysis of various schemes, missions and programmes of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India was carried out and recommendations were put forth towards promoting ecologically intensified agricultural farming practices by integrating ecological principles.