Strengthening smallholder farmers’ capacity to adapt to climate change: roles of community seedbanks

Community seed banks are repositories of local genetic diversity that is often adapted to prevailing climate conditions including biotic stresses. They may be useful to contribute to community-based strategies for adaptation to climate change. This chapter provides evidence about actual and potential roles of community seed banks in climate change adaptation based on a series of studies being carried out in various smallholder farmer regions of the world (Bangladesh, Guatemala, Nepal, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe). These studies illustrate two important ways in which more effective management of plant genetic resources can strengthen farmers’ capacity to adapt to climate change. The ways are (1) securing improved access to and availability of diverse, locally adapted crops and varieties through the use of multiple germplasm sources and (2) enhancement of related local knowledge and skills in plant management including seed selection, treatment, storage, multiplication, and distribution. As such, community seed banks can enhance or revive traditional social seed networks that have existed for decades or centuries based on combinations of seed-saving, seed exchanges, seed-giving, seed-bartering, and seed purchase. What is needed now are growing recognition among and support from policy-makers that community seed banks can be a very effective form of farmer organization toward more climate-smart agriculture.