Agrobiodiversity is a subset of biodiversity that encompasses all aspects of food and agricultural diversity, as well as agriculture ecosystems. Agrobiodiversity being the base of food production and food security has been disappearing at an alarming rate. Overexploitation of the natural environment, climate change, human-induced pollution, habitat destruction, invasive alien species, monoculture, high reliance on external inputs like hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizers, government policy promoting modern agriculture, lack of market access for local products, and urban customer demand not reaching rural producers are major causes of agro biodiversity loss. As agro-biodiversity is the backbone for the sustainable development of agriculture, food security and poverty alleviation in Nepal, conservation, maintenance and sustainable use of the available diversity on-farm need to be prioritized. Local communities is maintaining and managing local genetic materials for food and nutrition security.
CSB is a system of conservation and utilization of local genetic resources, operated at local levels and run by the community. Broadly, CSB is a community-led management approach of agriculturally important planting materials which involves production, collection, processing, storage, distribution (exchange, loan, grant, sell) and marketing of locally important genetic resources. It is emerging as an effective community institution that strengthens farmers’ capacities on collection, conservation, distribution and sustainable use of local crop genetic resources for food and agriculture in those areas, where rapid genetic erosion of traditional varieties is observed. In most of the cases, improved and exotic varieties replaced local crop genetic resources, thus narrowing the genetic base in agro-biodiversity and increasing the dependency of farmers to external sources for their seed requirements.
Objectives
The main objective of community seed bank is conservation and sustainable use of local crop variety and provides easy access to locally adapted quality seeds and planting materials to the smallholder famers and other stakeholders. Community seed bank performs multiple functions and provides various services-seed/food security, seed/food sovereignty, conservation, production, income, and livelihood improvement. It is also equally important for climate change adaptation and managing seed crisis.
Multiple functions of community seed bank:
CSB helps to conserve local crop landraces and restore “lost” varieties which enable seed security at the local level. It also can be a mechanism to generate agro-biodiversity based income for member farmers, for example, through the production and marketing of high quality seeds.
- Conservation of local, rare and endangered crop diversity on farm.
- CSB acts as a backup for the seeds stored in the national gene bank.
- Strengthen the local seed systems.
- CSB helps to continuously increase the adaptability of local landraces because of the dynamic nature of conservation.
- CSB also help to address the climate change as it acts as an important source of landraces that are highly adoptive and can be used in breeding purposes.
- Sustainable use of climate resilient local crop diversity.
Challenges of community seed bank:
Community seed bank sounds attractive but it requires a good amount of resources, long term support, focus on capacity building, strong farmers’ organization, internal resources, generation mechanism for sustainability, collaboration and linkages with stakeholders etc.
On the other hand, the intensification, commodification and commercialization of seeds by corporate industries have made people less interested in CSB which have made local landraces run out of public support for its use and conservation. Farmers prefer hybrid varieties over local ones and there are no such incentives from government for farmers for conserving local landraces. There is poor linkage between the farmers (who use local landraces) private sector, market and government. Thus, farmers are less interested in cultivating such landraces which has detrimental effect upon conserving agro biodiversity.
Conclusion:
On farm conservation of agricultural biodiversity is a contributor to sustainable livelihoods of rural and marginal farming communities. Community seed banking has been very effective
community led approach in conserving the rare, threatened and sociocultural important species. CSB intervention is recognized as an important strategy to reduce the effects of seed insufficiency among small-holder farmers. Availability of diverse (local and improved) accessions and germplasms in the CSB obviously enhances conservation and seed accessibility for food and agriculture even during the years with climatic stresses. CSB is a good practice to conserve, re-generate and multiply the crop seeds within community.
