Mind Map #3: Community Seed Banks (Leah Chaulk, Alison Fréchette-Ross, Trista Coull, Jaclyn Shaw)
Contribution to climate change adaptation
The Way Moving Forward: What Can We Do?
Examples :
Will enable populations to have access to reliable seeds that are resilient to climate change.
Enhancement of local knowledge systems: seed selection, treatment, storage, distribution
Keep the resources accessible and have benefit sharing arrangements. This way vulnerable communities can also have access, which in turn will help with food security.
bridge the gap between personal, local, municipal efforts, national efforts and international efforts.
Document and protect ancestral knowledge as well as diverse plant species.
Support farmers, economically as well in the endeavor of knowledge sharing, and maintaining seed saving projects.
Value and reward farmers who do seed save and promote local biodiversity. This can be through grants as well as advertising.
Record and share the results of community seed banks. Documentation and research can help improve projects in the future.
Develop the infrastructure of local seed banks in order to properly share knowledge & technology. A space to keep the seeds as well as a gathering place for community members to meet and share. Fund the electricity to run the fridge to store the seeds.
Promote the protection and recovery of native plant species, to local small scale farms.
Technologies and methodology
Kiziba community seed bank in Uganda. Roles of Seedbank:
Policy and funding
Withdrawal of external support can result in problems for many seed banks
GIS
Citizen science/crowdsourcing
1.Conserving seeds of local bean varieties
Locally adapted varieties
Why are seed banks important
2.facilitating capacity building of farmers and communities in the production of quality seeds.
Climate change
This happens because there are not a lot of available resources and appropriate regulations to support seed saving
Poverty elimination and women's empowerment
Food Security can be improved with increased food and seed sovereignty
Dr. Vandana Shiva: policies patenting seeds is antagonistic to climate change resilience and poverty reduction goals
Drought
Floods
increasing temperatures
3.Multiplying rare seeds of local varieties , and making them more accessible to farmers each year
Frost
Conservation of plant genetic resources
4.assesing diverse materials for different functional traits such as early material or drought resistance
seed and food sovereignty
Conservation of local varieties
- Providing diverse good quality seeds that have potential to adapt to climate change.
Builds a solid community because there are exchanges that occur in-between farmers.
Bhutan: maintaining existing buckwheat varieties and restoring endangered ones
Minas Gerais, Brazil:regional seed houses to distrubute most resistant varieties locally
Seeds for needs: Multi country seed saving initiative
- give farmers more access to crop diversity to strengthen their capacity to adapt to climate change
Women's empowerment: Gumbu village in South Africa (run by women farmers)
Promote the creation of laws, and policies that promote and protect seed savings (see policies branch)
Create a certification and standard for seed savers and producers. Certifications can help set a standard for producers to follow or strive for.
Identifying analogoous climate situations throughout time and space
- Have a constant Variety reaching farmers fields to foster on-farm experimentation
Beneficial for many fields of science: platforms include ebutterfly, ebird
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Cerrtain countries DO have legislation, but most do not
Ex of legislation: "Strategic Action PLan for Strengthening the Role of Mesoamerican Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in Adapting Agricultural Systems to Climate Change"
In mexico, community\ seed banks have support from federal gov
Exampes of seed companies that try to encourage seed saving: Salt Spring Seeds (Gulf Islands, BC)
Agroecology class: women end up doing a lot of the farmwork, and having seed sovereignty helps with women's independence
PGS systems are another example of how improvments to farm resilience can help women: shade coffee plantations with PGS allow for greater income for women and allow independence
Also bridging the gap between different nations, global south and global north
Seed companies that are local in scale and focus on promoting biodiversity and conservation of local ecosystems. Salt spring seeds as an example (https://www.saltspringseeds.com/)
Kelp forests as an example of the importance of indigenous knowledge: Ways to farm kelp are being researched, and there is a wealth of PNW indigenous groups that have valuable knowledge of the various ecosystem benefits of kelp forests and how sustainable harvest can be achieved(agroforestry paper, Leah)
We usually order our seeds because I did not know how to do seed saving and last year we were not able to purchase certain seeds that we usually always have. Therefor, it made me realize that we are relying on these companies to have seeds and they have control over what they are selling as well as the price it is sold at. Compared to community seed banks where it can be shared throughout the community and it is not controlled by one company. (Alison)