Abstract
Farmers' knowledge in describing and distinguishing climate-induced traits and selecting niche-specific crop varieties is important for developing farmer-preferred varieties and increasing crop yield, thereby improving food security and resilience to climate change. However, there has been poor attempt to document local knowledge on climate change related traits, while local knowledge documentation in general has made significant progress in the past. Taking rice as an example, this paper attempts to document farmers' knowledge on climate-induced traits in local and modern varieties, characterize varieties against different climate stress-tolerant traits, compare farmer knowledge with scientific knowledge, and discuss its implications for improving crop yield, food security and resilience to climate change. Information was collected using a 'Functional Trait Matrix' and sources of information include Focus Group Discussions (FGD), Key Informant Surveys, direct observations, and review of secondary literature. The results revealed that farmers consider both abiotic factors (drought, cold weather, edaphic factors, water logging, lodging), and biotic factors (insect resistance, disease resistance) as climate-induced problems and have their own way of describing varietal traits, measuring strengths and weaknesses of varieties, and making informed decisions based on varietal response to those factors. Local Landraces (LRs) are found to be more resistant and tolerant against different traits than the Modern Varieties (MVs) grown, which could be largely because of long-term adaptation and evolution of LRs in the local environment. Farmers' knowledge was found similar to scientist descriptors and descriptor states used in characterizing varieties, which suggests that local and scientific knowledge can play complementary role and combination of two can give better results than one or the other. Specifically, farmers' knowledge can be used to choose local parents in breeding, especially if resource is a limitation. The tool developed in this study can be widely used globally in understanding farmer knowledge and distinguishing local and modern varieties against climate stress tolerance and making apt decision, as well as promoting conservation of agro-biodiversity on-farm for food security and long-term resilience.