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

  1. 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)