Background

The Community Seed Bank (CSB) approach has a long history – first appearing in the Global South in the late 1980s mainly with the support of international and national non-governmental organizations. The functions, size, and typologies vary from country to country but it was initiated to conserve, restore, revive, revitalize, and strengthen local seed systems primarily focused on local crop diversity (Vernooy et al., 2015). Now, different forms of community-level seed banking exist on all continents. The countries that pioneered the CSB bank approach include Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Nepal, Nicaragua, Philippines and Zimbabwe. The contribution of the CSB bank to on-farm management of agricultural biodiversity; improving food and nutrition security, realization of farmers’ rights and seed sovereignty; strengthening local seed systems, and enhancing livelihoods has been highlighted by several scholars. However, the wider scaling up and mainstreaming of the CSB has been a huge challenge for organizations promoting it. The side event will highlight Nepal’s experiences with CSBs and discuss issues around as it is also equally important for several other countries and organizations working with smallholder farmers on food security, seed sovereignty, farmers’ rights, and climate resilience.

Through World Social Forum 2024, Local Initiatives for Research and Development (LI-BIRD) and Community Seed Bank Association Nepal (CSABN) aim to highlight and raise collective voices to recognize the crucial role of CSBs in promoting food security, seed sovereignty, farmers’ rights, and building climate resilience of smallholder farmers.

Objectives

• To share learnings and experiences on the role of community seed banks in its various above mention aspects and,
• To encourage governmental, civil society organizations (CSOs) and development partners to review and develop enabling policies, plans, and programs towards integrating and supporting community seed banks.

Session Delivery Methods and Panelists

Presentation followed by a Panel Discussion: The session will start by sharing farmer’s experience from Mr Uddhav Adhikari, Chairperson of the Alliance of Agriculture for Food (AAF) and Mr. Dilli Paudel, Chairperson of the Shivagunj Community Seed Bank, Jhapa. Then after, Mr. Pitambar Shrestha, a well known CSB expert and the Advisor to the CSBN will present a lead paper on CSB followed by a short discussion among panelists highlighting the critical role of CSB in food and nutrition security, seed sovereignty and farmer’s rights, climate change adaptation and as well as policies and funding issues for up scaling and sustainability.

The panel discussion session will be facilitated by Dr. Devendra Gauchan, Honorable research fellow, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, a well-known expert on agrobiodiversity and seed policies.

Panelist

Mr. Shakeb Nabi, Country Director, Welthungerhilfe (WHH)
Ms. Parbati Bhandari, Chairperson, Community Seed Banks Association of Nepal (CSBN)
Dr. Hari Bahadur K.C, Director General, Department of Agriculture (DoA)
Mr. Prakash Kafle, Thematic Lead – Resilience & Climate Justice, Oxfam in Nepal
Mr. Bharat Bhandari, Executive Director, LI-BIRD