Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
This opinion article examines the roles, challenges and opportunities for community seed banks (CSBs) to strengthen agrobiodiversity and local food security in low- and middle-income countries. It outlines core CSB functions: conserving and making available locally adapted varieties, supporting on-farm diversity, facilitating seed loans and sales, enabling participatory breeding and knowledge exchange, and promoting gender and youth inclusion. The paper discusses barriers to long-term economic sustainability, including limited legal recognition, difficulties registering farmer varieties, and weak market integration. It surveys practical approaches to improve CSB viability: forming cooperatives and associative structures, developing short value chains and local food hubs, adopting certifications, engaging in value-added processing and labeling, pursuing micro-finance and seed-linked credit schemes, and entering partnerships with formal research and private actors to register and develop varieties. Case examples referenced include Nakaseke CSB in Uganda and CSB experiences in Nepal, illustrating increased varietal diversity, farmer empowerment, and emerging market initiatives. The authors conclude that investment in CSB economic sustainability, legal recognition and market integration can enable CSBs to bridge formal and informal seed systems, enhance innovation uptake, and support resilient, biodiverse production systems.
Key topics: community seed banks, economic sustainability, agrobiodiversity, seed systems, local varieties, market integration, participatory breeding, seed finance
