Namibia’s first community seed bank launched in Kavango West

A first-of-its-kind community seed bank in Namibia was launched last week at Sharukwe village in Kavango West Region.The N$400 000 project is being funded by the Environmental Investment Fund (EIF) and Mobile Telecommunications Ltd. (MTC).In the speech read on her behalf, Kavango West governor, Sirkka Ausiku, said the importance of community seed banks cannot be overemphasised, as they play a crucial role in terms of persevering seeds.“Many local farmers have resorted to various traditional mechanisms to preserve their genetic material,” she said.“Therefore, there is a critical need to develop formal community seed banks within these areas," she said.Preserving for goodCommunity seed banks are locally governed institutions to conserve, exchange, share and facilitate direct access to gene bank material for farmers, thereby contributing to enhanced food security and resilience in the face of environmental changes.“Community seed banks are key components of the community seed networks, representing a low-cost and low-technology-demanding system for seed management within our rural communities," Ausiku explained. The governor said a low-cost structure was constructed for community members to save their seeds for current and future use.The seed bank will require an organised group to manage the facility and also to source seeds of interest within the Kavango West Region and beyond, under the guidance of the National Plant Genetic Resources Centre (NPGRC).National effort Namibia is committed to conserving plant genetic resources for current and future use, which led to the establishment of the NPGRC in 1993.The NPGRC, also referred to as the national gene bank, is based in Windhoek and its operations are guided by national laws and policies: the Namibian national strategic action plan for plant genetic resources for food and agriculture of 2016–2026, the Seed and Seed Varieties Act, and the Access to Biological and Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge Act.The gene bank is responsible for the conservation of various traditional genetic resources of plants in the country.This involves the collection of germplasm and its appropriate processing, storage and curation purposes.Germplasm is the term used to describe the seeds, plants or plant parts useful in crop breeding, research, and conservation efforts. Plants, seed or cultures are germplasm when they are maintained for the purposes of studying, managing or using the genetic information they possess.The centre houses about 5 000 seeds of various wild plant species, wild relatives and agricultural crops of national importance.At riskMeanwhile, Ausiku said local farmers and their communities are, however, struggling to maintain indigenous plant genetic resource diversities, in particular, their traditional varieties or landraces.“These diversities are disappearing or under pressure from anthropogenic and ecological issues. For instance, farmers are following what their neighbours do in terms of replacing local varieties with modern ones, promotion of improved and hybrid varieties by the public sector without considering loss of local varieties, prolonged drought and devastating floods leading to the destruction of wild plants,” she said.- kenya@namibiansun.com

Namibia’s first community seed bank launched in Kavango West

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Namibia’s first community seed bank launched in Kavango West

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