NCCF jointly with CIFOR-ICRAF organizes brainstorming session on the Accreditation of Nurseries and certification of Quality Planting Material (QPM)
The first Brainstorming session on the Accreditation of nurseries and certification of Quality Planting Material (QPM) under the USAID Trees Outside Forests in India (TOFI) program was held online on 29th August, 2022. The session was jointly organized by the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) and Network for Certification and Conservation of Forests (NCCF). The main agenda of the session was to bring together experts from various stakeholder categories engaged in the management of QPM including, NGOs, relevant ministries, business industries, and technical/academic organizations to apprise the status of the development process and progress so far for the inclusion of a Star Rating mechanism in the ambit of QPM Certification scheme.
In the welcome remarks, Mr A. M. Singh, Project Director, USAID ToFI Project, NCCF, gave a brief introduction to the sessions. It was followed by the welcome remarks along with an overview of the strategic approach of USAID ToFI Programme by Dr Chandrashekhar Biradar, Chief of Party-ToFI & Country Director, CIFOR-ICRAF, and Mr Varghese Paul, Deputy Director, Environment and Natural Resources, General Development Office, USAID/India. From Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW), Dr O P Sharma, Additional Commissioner, NRM Division has joined this event as a special guest.
The whole event was divided into two parts; Dr S. K. Dhyani, Country co-ordinator, CIFOR-ICRAF has graced the 1st session as the Chairperson. Ms Suparna Das, Project Associate, NCCF presented a brief description of the QPM standard developed by NCCF & the progress so far. It was a very interactive session, where many valuable suggestions and comments were received from the SDG members and key stakeholders regarding upgradation of some of the criteria mentioned in zero draft QPM standard. The 2nd session was chaired by Mr A. K. Srivastava, Director General, NCCF and a presentation was given by Ms Abhilasha Guleria, Assistant Director, NCCF about the Role of QPM standard in ToFI Programme and the way forward. This was followed by an open house discussion where we received some suggestions regarding inclusion of star rating mechanism, about the weightage condition to the parameters etc. also invited some distinguished participants to be a part of our Standard developing group in QPM. The session ended with a vote of thanks to all the participants.