Farmer-managed seed systems (FMSS) deliver the bulk of seeds used by smallholder farmers in many countries of the Global South. Community-based agrobiodiversity management is a participatory approach to strengthening FMSS from within, often undertaken in collaboration with scientists and breeders. Community seed banks (CSBs) are central to this approach. While well-managed CSBs are widely recognised for their potential to enhance seed and food security and support climate-change adaptation, research-based evidence remains limited. This study fills in this gap by analysing the functions of CSBs in FMSS, their contributions to climate-resilient seed systems and how this affects local seed security. The findings are based on a comparative, qualitative in-depth case study of 17 CSBs, covering five CSBs each in Ethiopia and Malawi, and seven CSBs in Nepal. Our study highlights how CSBs contribute to conserving crop diversity and making it available locally. We also show how some CSBs contribute to variety enhancement and/or development, providing collaborative platforms for plant breeders and farmers. Another important function is capacity building in seed management and farming methods. The CSBs have helped farmers adapt their agricultural production to climate change by providing quality seeds of climate-resilient crop varieties in time for planting, and through capacity building in suitable farming methods. The study demonstrates how these CSBs have contributed to local seed security. However, not all varieties are always available, amounts may vary, and there have been instances of genetic erosion. In most cases, seeds are widely distributed through farmer-to-farmer-exchange and trade. Nevertheless, challenges of scale are evident, as the number of CSBs are limited, the numbers of members and farmers served by the CSBs vary, and CSB growth strategies have had only limited success. We conclude that CSBs perform multiple functions and that their contributions to developing climate-resilient seed systems are significant but have thus far been confined to relatively small segments of farmers.

Smallholder farmers in the Global South largely rely on seed accessed from farmer-managed seed systems (FMSS) for their seed security. Community seed banks (CSBs) have emerged to manage and enhance the diversity of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) and make it accessible to farmers. However, the connections between farmers' access to crop genetic diversity and food security and the contributions of CSBs remain understudied. We address this gap by exploring the following questions: (1) How does access to PGRFA affect food security among smallholder farmers in the Global South? (2) How do CSBs contribute in this regard? (3) What are the gender-specific aspects and implications of these findings? Using Zotero, we conducted a narrative literature review with a qualitative analysis of 85 relevant peer-reviewed publications. Our findings indicate that access to PGRFA positively influences the six dimensions of food security, although to varying degrees, and that well-functioning CSBs contribute substantially to this end. Women often benefit from being CSB members. However, the technical and financial sustainability of many CSBs is poor and their outreach is limited. Enabling political, legal and institutional environments is integral to realizing the food security potential of FMSS and CSBs.

Community Seed Banks (CSBs) have been established in many developing countries to improve small-scale farmers’ access to crop genetic resources and thereby their food security. However, empirical evidence of the effects on farmers’ food security remains scarce. This study focuses on Malawi, where the NGO Biodiversity Conservation Initiative has facilitated the operation of four CSBs. Among these, Mkombezi CSB was selected for in-depth analysis, as a case of a well-established CSB carrying out typical activities of a CSB, such as conserving a rich diversity of crop varieties, enhancing the performance of selected varieties, enabling access to relatively high-quality seed of the varieties, arranging seed and food fairs, capacity building in agricultural practices responding to the effects of climate change, as well as trainings in group dynamics and gender relations relevant to food production and the operation of the CSB. Three questions guide this study: (1) Does Mkombezi CSB contribute to food security? (2) If so, how? (3) Under what conditions may the findings be relevant for other CSBs in Malawi and elsewhere? The analysis builds on qualitative information from 43 semi-structured in-depth interviews, two focus-group discussions and 24 key informant interviews. We find that Mkombezi CSB contributes decisively to improving food security among its members as well as helping them to cope with lean seasons and unexpected shocks. Overall, this study indicates that under certain conditions, CSBs may contribute considerably to food security.

Community seed banks (CSBs) play an important role in ensuring access to crop genetic diversity. The extension of intellectual property rights (IPR) to include farmers' varieties and traditional knowledge in India could impinge on the role of these seed banks in conserving and sharing crop genetic resources. This study enquires into how CSBs are responding to these developments, and the strategic options available with regard to IPR. Should community seed banks claim IPRs over their material or should they focus on promoting greater access to achieve their aims of conservation, sustainable use and innovation of crop genetic resources? By employing two distinct strategies—the ownership and stewardship approaches—we analyse how CSBs in India respond to demands for greater legal control over crop genetic resources and the need for access to genetic resources to ensure food security, and derive possible strategy options. We examine the strategies adopted by five organizations that facilitate the work of such community seed banks, noting the prospects and challenges as regards adopting a stewardship or an ownership approach.

Contestations about the way in which digital sequence information is used and regulated have created stumbling blocks across multiple international policy processes. Such schisms have profound implications for the way in which we manage and conceptualize agrobiodiversity and its benefits. This paper explores the relationship between farmers' rights, as recognized in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, and the dematerialization of genetic resources. Using concepts of "stewardship" and "ownership" we emphasize the need to move away from viewing agrobiodiversity as a commodity that can be owned, toward a strengthened, proactive and expansive stewardship approach that recognizes plant genetic resources for food and agriculture as a public good which should be governed as such. Through this lens we analyze the relationship between digital sequence information and different elements of farmers' rights to compare and contrast implications for the governance of digital sequence information. Two possible parallel pathways are presented, the first envisaging an enhanced multilateral system that includes digital sequence information and which promotes and enhances the realization of farmers' rights; and the second a more radical approach that folds together concepts of stewardship, farmers' rights, and open source science. Farmers' rights, we suggest, may well be the linchpin for finding fair and equitable solutions for digital sequence information beyond the bilateral and transactional approach that has come to characterize access and benefit sharing under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Existing policy uncertainties could be seized as an unexpected but serendipitous opportunity to chart an alternative and visionary pathway for the rights of farmers and other custodians of plant genetic resources.

Armenia is amongst the world’s richest agrobiodiversity hotspots, but rapid genetic erosion is threatening these vital resources of food security. The objective of this study is to investigate how legislation and policies affect the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) in Armenia. National gene banks are central actors in this regard. Relevant legislation and policies within the context of international commitments and the institutional structures of Armenia are analysed, as well as their impact on the gene banks’ ability to provide access to PGRFA for farmers. Official documents, legislation and interviews with key stakeholders in Armenia are the primary sources of information. Despite Armenia’s post-Soviet trajectory of institutional collapse, war and lack of political support, national gene banks have managed to store much of Armenia’s plant heritage ex situ, even though under modest conditions. Armenian legislation provides barriers to the marketing and exchange of seeds from most traditional varieties. Nevertheless, informal exchange still continues amongst farmers to some extent. The legislation is a serious obstacle to conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA and thus to the compliance with relevant international agreements that Armenia is party to. As a comprehensive strategy and action plan on PGRFA conservation and sustainable use is still lacking, the gene banks’ promotion of on-farm conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA can be attributed to committed individuals taking responsibility for the country’s international obligations. Political attention and policy coherence are required, as are well-targeted long-term commitments from development agencies.

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceeding chapters of the book. The book focuses on the institutional changes in the genetic resources regime complex. It explores the theory that intentionally neglects the domestic sources of foreign policy in order to achieve greater parsimony. The book explains both club cooperation and institutional layering as distinct types of institutional change in regime complexes. It presents case studies regarding pre-existing disclosure regimes in several European Union (EU) member states and Switzerland, which would have limited the legislative and regulatory changes necessary for complying with an international obligation to require disclosure of origin. The EU's bargaining behavior is thus the result of complex, internal coordination processes among member states and the supranational institutions. Situation structure also promises …

Realizing farmers’ rights essentially means enabling farmers to maintain and develop crop genetic resources as they have done since the dawn of agriculture, and recognizing and rewarding them for this indispensable contribution to the global pool of genetic resources. The realization of farmers’ rights is a precondition for maintaining crop genetic diversity, which is the basis of all food and agricultural production in the world. Plant genetic diversity is probably more important for farming than any other environmental factor, simply because it is the factor that enables farmers to adapt to changing environmental conditions, such as climate change (Esquinas-Alcázar, 2005; Andersen, 2008; Fujisaka, Williams and Halewood, 2009; United Nations, 2009). Since farmers are the custodians and developers of crop genetic resources in the field, their rights in this regard are crucial for enabling them to continue this role. For this reason, farmers’ rights constitute a cornerstone in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). Achieving the first two objectives of the treaty – the conservation and sustainable use of crop genetic resources (Article 1) – depends to a large extent on farmers and their ability to maintain these resources in situ on their farms, which in turn depends on farmers’ rights. In this chapter, we look at how these rights are addressed in the ITPGRFA. We then proceed to examine the concept of farmers’ rights and to identify the central content of these rights and achievements so far with regard to their realization. Examples of best practices will be presented, and an overview of the negotiations leading up to the treaty’s ratification will be highlighted before conclusions are drawn.