Community seed banks and farmers’ rightsRonnie Vernooy, Bioversity International, Farmers’ Rights Consultation, Bali, Indonesia, 27-30 September 2016.

Multiple functions

Conservation: short and long term• Local/rare/heirloom varieties

• Restoration of “lost” varieties

• Climate resilient varieties

Multiple functions contd.

Documentation and protection of indigenous/local knowledge• Access and availability

• Exchanges of quality seeds

• Introducing new diversity

• Seed production and distribution/marketing

• Participatory crop improvement

Seed and food sovereignty• Community biodiversity management

Community seed banks and farmers’ rights (1)

Recognition: Importance of traditional varieties and related knowledge in smallholder farmers’ livelihoods

Community seed banks as part of: national conservation strategy (South Africa)/agrobiodiversity policy (Nepal)/PGRFA policy (Uganda)

Access and benefit sharing: financial and technical support, access to ‘new’ seeds and knowledge, connections to the national genebank, crop improvement, improved extension service

Community seed banks and farmers’ rights (2)

Participation in decision making: emerging • Through national network of community seed banks (Nepal)

• Cooperation with national genebank (Bhutan, Zimbabwe)

• Cooperation with international genebank (Peru)

• Cooperation with plant breeding institutions (Bangladesh)

Key roles of women recognized and valued

Community seed banks and farmers’ rights (3)

Save/sell/exchange seeds: At the heart, but could be expanded to the right to agrobiodiversityNote that: United Nations’ draft declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas (UN 2015) includes the right to seeds (Article 22) and to biological diversity (Article 23)

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Sustainability (1)

• Farmers’ interest and leadership

• Availability of local facilitator and interlocutor with other organizations

• Responsiveness to crop diversity decline/loss

• Possibility to respond to climate change stresses

Sustainability (2)

• Potential to develop into a broader community organization

• Availability of sound technical support; technical capabilities of farmers

• Possibility to link with crop improvement activities and to national genebank

• Supportive policy and legal environment

Challenges

Recognition and rewarding of custodians

Towards a national gene/seed banking system

Adding value

Strengthening the capacity to adapt to climate change

Community seed banks as platform for local rural development

Stronger policy and legal support

Photo credits

Carlos Alberto Dayrell, Brazil

EOSA, Ethiopia

E.D. Israel Oliver King, MSSRF, India

Prem Mathur, Bioversity International

Pitambar Shrestha, LI-BIRD

Stefano Padulosi, Bioversity International

The Spanish Seed Network

UBINIG, Bangladesh

Ronnie Vernooy, Bioversity International

Thank you

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Ronnie Vernooyr.vernooy@cgiar.org