Solutions from Below : A strategic approach for the sustainable management of organised community seed banks

Sammanfattning: Organised community seed banks (OCBSs) are one of the main tools to preserve crop diversity at a local level and therefore constitute an important driver for local resilience, as well as an important tool to move society towards sustainability. Agriculture is a fundamental leverage point for society: it fulfils a basic survival need as well as being one of the causes of humans’ unsustainable impact on the environment. It also holds the key to the preservation of biodiversity, which is increasingly important in the face of climate change and extreme weather conditions, and the reduction in use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, which is necessary to move towards sustainability. Organised community seed banks have the potential to be a tool for this preservation of biodiversity, however, there is currently a lack of literature, resources and guidelines to position them as such. This research set out to identify the challenges that OCSBs face that could affect their success in contributing to a sustainable society, and the gaps between what management resources are available to them and their current management practices. With the aid of organised seed bank representatives and experts from around the world, the result was the design of a strategic approach to help OCSBs address their challenges and allow them to better contribute to the provision of food sovereignty, food security and socio-ecological sustainability.