Report

Community Seed Banks: Sharing Experiences from North and South

The number of community seed banks is rapidly increasing, in response to the growing demand for greater diversity of crop genetic resources among farmers and gardeners around the world.

Two major studies shed light on this development, enabling a closer look at the differing approaches, methods, outreach and achievements.

These studies were presented and illustrated with examples at a side-event at the Seventh Session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Plant Treaty) in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2017, aimed at sharing experiences.

The report “Community Seed Banks: Sharing Experiences from North and South“presents the contents of the event, as well as key decisions from the Governing Body Session of relevance for communityseed banks.

What are the key messages of these resolutions? And how will they be followed up in practice among the Contracting Parties? The report provides some answers, at the same time highlighting how DIVERSIFOOD project follows up on this question.