Potential suitable habitat of Buckwheat ( Fagopyrum spp) under the climate change scenarios in Nepal

Buckwheat is minor crop of Nepal. Due to their multiple uses, short growing periods, high nutritional and medicinal values, wide adaptability has become popular not only to researcher but also for farmers and consumers globally. It grows in a wider range from low land Terai to higher mountains of Nepal. Maxent modelling was used to quantify the current suitable habitat and predicted future suitable area under different climate change scenarios, based on representative concentration pathways (RCP 4.5 and 8.5) in two different time periods (2050 and 2070 AD) using climatic predictive variables and species localities. The most suitable habitat area of cultivation, area loss, and gained for buckwheat were determined. The model showed that about 46% area of country is climatically suitable for buckwheat within the elevation range of 289–4441 m. Habitat suitability of buckwheat would shrink by 7.5% and 8.2% under RCPs 4.5 and by 7.6% and 8.3% under 8.5 RCPs in the year 2050 and 2070, respectively. The loss and gain area analysis also indicated that suitable area would be lost more than gained in both 2050 and 2070. These findings are expected to support planning and policy framing for climatic resilience smart agriculture practice to meet the livelihood and food security problems in the mountains of Nepal. Due to medicinal value of buckwheat, its demands is increasing. The increasing demend of buckwheat would be fulfilled by increasing production under climatically suitable area under climate change scenarios.