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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)
Read our brief!
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