Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS)

GIAHS status sounds like a productivity upgrade programme. It is actually the opposite: a promise to leave old farming methods alone.

Manual work preparing land for rice cultivation in Wayanad, Kerala. GIAHS status protects traditional farming systems like this one. Photo by Bobinson K B, via Wikimedia Commons. Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

📑 Contents

1Must Know
2Good to Know
3Test Yourself
4Great to Know
5Previous Year Questions

🏛️ Must Know

What GIAHS Status Actually Aims to Do

Safeguard, Not Modernize GIAHS status aims to identify and safeguard eco-friendly traditional farm practices. It is not about upgrading farms with modern technology.
Landscapes and Knowledge Too The goal covers the associated landscapes, agricultural biodiversity, and knowledge systems of local communities, not just crop yields.
Not a Productivity Scheme GIAHS does not aim to greatly enhance agricultural productivity through modern training and financial support.
Not a GI Tag Programme GIAHS also does not grant Geographical Indication status to farm varieties. That is a separate, unrelated legal protection.

Good to Know

📘 Good to Know

How the FAO Runs GIAHS

Run by the FAO GIAHS is a Food and Agriculture Organization programme, started in 2002 to recognize time-tested traditional systems.
Balancing Old and New The programme aims to balance conservation, sustainable adaptation, and socioeconomic development for the communities that maintain these systems.
India’s GIAHS Sites India’s recognized GIAHS sites include Koraput’s traditional agriculture in Odisha and Kuttanad’s below-sea-level farming in Kerala.

📝 Previous Year Questions

UPSC CSP 2016 — The Overall Goal of GIAHS

UPSC 2016 GIAHS aims to identify and safeguard traditional farm practices and their associated landscapes and knowledge systems. See UPSC CSP 2016 GS Paper I, Q27. View this question.

Test Yourself

Great to Know

🌟 Great to Know

Why Traditional Systems Need Special Protection

A Real Loss of Diversity Koraput’s rice landrace diversity fell from around 1,800 varieties in the 1960s to about 350 by the 1990s.
More Than Farming These systems support carbon sequestration, watershed protection, and biodiversity conservation as side benefits of the traditional methods themselves.
Connects to Other PYQ Facts GIAHS sits alongside other FAO and UN conservation-recognition programmes UPSC tests, each with its own distinct scope and rules.

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