Rupandehi a part of Lumbini Province, is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal and covers an area of 1,360 km2. The district headquarter is Bhairahawa. As per the national census 2011, the population of Rupandehi was 880,196. The district lies on the southern and western part of Nepal. On the East it shares border with Nawalparasi district, on West with Kapilvastu district, on North with Palpa district, and on South with India. The elevation of the district lies between 100m to 1229m from sea level. The total area of the district is 1,360 km2 with 16.1% in Churia Range and rest in the Terai region.

Genetic resources means genetics material of actual or potential value. Genetic material means any material of plant, animal, microbial or other origin containing functional units of heredity. Plant genetic resources for food and agriculture consist of diversity of seeds and planting materials of traditional varieties and modern cultivars, crop wild relatives, and other wild plant species. These resources are used as food, feed for domestic animals, fibers, textiles, and energy. Their conservation and sustainable use is necessary to ensure crop production and to meet growing environmental challenges and climate change. The erosion of these resources poses a severe threat to the world's food security in the long term. Plant genetic resources as the reproductive or vegetative propagating material of: cultivated varieties (cultivars) in current use and newly developed varieties; obsolete cultivars; primitive cultivars (landraces); wild and weed species; near relatives of cultivated varieties; and special genetic stocks (including elite and current breeder's lines and mutants). At that level, then, plant genetic resources are based on the original natural distribution of genetic materials.

Rupandehi is a fertile Gangetic plain land. It has easy access. It has the most potential land where the staple food crops such as rice, wheat and maize are grown. Cereals are also staple foods of Nepalese people. The important cash crops grown in this area include vegetables, pulses, oilseeds, sugarcane, tobacco, jute and potato. In addition, several tropical fruits such as mango, litchi, jack fruit, pineapple, guava, banana etc are also grown. Buffalo, cow, goat, pig, poultry, fishery and vegetables are also integrated with cereal crop cultivation. Forests are also a very important component of the farming system. Agro biodiversity is an important component of total biological diversity, and has a crucial role in sustaining and strengthening the food and nutritional security and health of the increasing human population. The yield level of most crops has reached a plateau due to the narrow genetic base. To widen the genetic base for further improvement, it is necessary to collect, characterize, evaluate and conserve the multi-crop genetic resources. It is also important to collect landraces, which have been conserved and used by different communities as part of their tradition. Landraces are rapidly being replaced by modern cultivars due to increasing demand for more yields from limited land. Although these traditional local races have comparatively low yield, they are endowed with certain economical desirable traits, such as stress and disease tolerance and other adaptive features.

Agriculture faces a tremendous challenge of feeding some 26 million people and of being instrumental to their prosperity. In reality, it has remained subsistence oriented with lower productivity in the region. Rapid population growth amidst a scarce fertile land has led to intense pressure on the natural resources. As a result, encroachment in the marginal lands in the hills and mountains for agricultural use and conversion of prime agricultural land into non-agricultural uses in the plains has started signaling grave environmental repercussions. Its contribution to GDP is about 36 percent. Although agriculture’s share in GDP has been declining, it is still the largest single sector of the economy while its position in terms of providing livelihoods to the great majority of the population has changed little over the years. The country heavily relies on domestic production of crop or plant products. The deficit is met through imports mainly from India. About 15 agricultural commodities or products worth NRs. 13 653 200 000 were exported to India whereas 12 agricultural commodities or products worth NRs. 443 810 000 were imported from India in 2006/07 . In addition, agricultural commodities or products are also exported and imported from overseas countries.

The wild rice and wild relatives of rice as a source of genetic resources are cultivated in Rupandehi district. The wild rice and wild relatives of rice are Oryza nivara and Oryza rufipogon Griff. (Oryza perennis Moench). Phyllanthus emblica, Syzygium cumini, Tamarindus indica, and Terminalia bellirica. are the fruits used have been used. Fruit of P. emblica is believed to be a major source of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) which is used for the treatment of several disorders such as common cold, scurvy, heart diseases, etc. Although local people eat fruit of Semecarpus anacardium, it is sometimes allergic to some people. Fruits of some species such as Xeromphis uliginosa, Xeromphis spinosa, Terminalia chebula are used as vegetables. People used to collect mushrooms such as Pleurotus sp., Morchella sp., Ganoderma sp., but mushrooms collected from the forest can be poisonous. The ability to recognize the wild edible species is very subjective and depends upon the experience of the collector.  leaves of Antidesma montanum var. montanum and Mentha spicata, vegetative parts of Oxalis corniculata, tendrils of Dryopteris cochleata, flowers of Desmodium oojeinense, buds of Ficus lacor, and buds and flowers of Bauhinia variegata are used fresh to prepare pickle. Unripe fruit of Mangnifera indica, Phyllanthus emblica, and Tamarindus indica and young shoots of Dendrocalamus hamiltonii are preserved for future use.

Collection of germplasm is the primary task for conservation and proper use of genetic resources. After collecting the germplasm, various task like data recording, seed handling, registration, and further processing of seeds will be initiated. The collected germplasms were grown in the field for seed increase and detailed agromorphological characterization. The seeds has to pass through seed processing such as cleaning, drying, viability testing in the seed lab the National Agriculture Genetic Resources Centre (NAGRC), Khumaltar, Lalitpur for storing in the short-term(5-100C & 40-45% RH) and long-term (-200C)module. All the samples were accompanied by a copy of the relevant passport data information sheets.Different crop commodity research program under Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) is one of the germplasm utilization centre responsible for varietal development in the country. Therefore, utilization part should be strong for running ex-situ conservation of germplasm effectively because of costly works of ex-situ conservation such as rejuvenation, screening duplicates, preliminary characterization etc.