Seeds of resilients - A novel strategy to discover and use climate-adapted germplasm

At the moment, there are 11 seed banks in developing countries, and they are coordinated by CGIAR centres around the world. Nevertheless, farmers are often still far away from breeding progresses and have no access to diverse, locally adapted seeds. Building up a community driven, decentralized seed banks should be a one of the main priority in future development work.

Bioversity International tries to use crop genetic diversity to face rural challenges and foster adaptation to climate change. This is why a handbook, a resource box for resilient seed systems was compiled in order to assist scientists, plant breeders, farmers and the practitioners in the field. About 150 different stakeholders coming either from the research field or from farms in several countries have worked on this handbook for 3 years..

The strategy presented in the handbook combines climate and crop modelling tools and participatory research methods, and it has 8 steps:

1. Situational analysis and planning

2. Data preparation and selection of software

3. Climate change analysis and identification of germplasm

4. Germplasm acquisition

5. Field experimentation

6. Germplasm conservation

7. Participatory evaluation

8. Knowledge sharing and communication.

The full handbook can be downloaded here: http://www.seedsresourcebox.org/