Community Seed Bank

Community seed banks are collections of seeds of local landraces that are maintained and administered by the communities themselves

1. Community seed banks had birth from the necessity of local people, importance has assigned after that.
2. CSBs serve local farmers to form an informal seed distribution system prevailing in villages since ancient time at no or very low cost.
3. CSB system is maintained and promoted by farmers and conserves landraces; in addition to that it may also include improved varieties of farmers/farmers group interest, farmer selected varieties etc.
4. Seeds stored in CSBs in order ensure planting material for farmer himself or group in large quantities for the season or to ensure conservation genetic material of rare and endangered varieties for the posterity due to their importance.
5. Establishment and management community seed banks form an important part of informal seed distribution system in villages and they have no established guideline for the same.
6. Community seed banks serve as focal point in maintaining indigenous genetic diversity and associated traditional knowledge involving farmers’ community.
7. The main aim of community seed conservation is to ensure/increase local seed security and to help prolonged utilization of locally important genetic diversity.
8. Community seed banks play a vital role in improving farmers’ access to seeds, conserving agricultural biodiversity for seed security and the associated traditional knowledge, providing options for adapting to climate change, as well as can contribute to the realization of Farmers’ Rights.
9. Farmers need relatively little skill to access the community seed banks and on-farm conservation efforts can be linked easily.
10. Specific objectives, include:
    1. Maintain diversity and sustainable conservation of farmer landraces.
    2. Link community seed banks and Farmers’ Rights.
    3. Link community seed banks with Farmers’ Rights and sustainable agricultural production.
11. Motivation is necessary for the community farmers in order to participate in conservation and seed management programme for the posterity.
12. Assessing the quality and quantity of seed at the time of distribution and while taking it back from the farmers for storage.
13. Linking CSBs with FPOs and seed marketing companies in order to market for the surplus/extra seeds available with the seeds banks and extend the support to farmers as well as CSBs.
14. Conditions leading to success of CSBs
    1. Willingness of farmers to participate in community seed bank interventions.
    2. Large scale cultivation of local landraces as component of subsistence farming.
    3. Majority of local landraces have an important incentive of fetching premium prices in markets after some add-value interventions particularly through processing or packaging.

• Ronnie Vernooy, Pitambar Shrestha and Bhuwon Sthapit (2015). Community Seed Banks - Origin, Evolution and Propspects
• Ronnie Vernooy, Pitambar Shrestha, Bhuwon Sthapit, Gloria Otieno and Arnab Gupta (2017). The roles of community seed banks in climate adaptation, Development in Practice, 27:3, 316-327.
• SK Malik, P B Singh, ASingh, AVerma, NAmeta and I S Bisht (2013) Community Seed Banks: Operation and Scientific Managment. National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi, India p: 64 .