Strengthening community seed banks in East and Southern Africa in times of Covid-19

Kimani, D; Adokorach, J.; Munkombwe, G.; Mushita, A.; Otieno, G.; Recha, T.; Subedi, A.; Vernooy, R. (2021) Strengthening community seed banks in East and Southern Africa in times of Covid-19. Rome (Italy): Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT 6 p. ISBN: 978-92-9255-212-1

This brief presents the highlights of the work done in 2020 in East and Southern Africa – in the difficult context of the outbreak of Covid 19− to strengthen community seed banks and foster the collaboration between them and with the national genebank of each country. Highlights include the development of a protocol for the collaboration between a national genebank and community seed banks; seed and knowledge exchanges between the national genebank of Kenya and community seed banks; the development of a standard operational procedure for community seed banks in Uganda; the establishment of the first community seed bank under the ‘umbrella’ of the Zambia Agricultural Research Institute; and the exploration of opportunities for registration of farmer seed and supporting the formulation of enabling policies for smallholder farmer seed systems in Zimbabwe.