Community Seed Bank Croatia

Background

Seeds that are being conserved in a gene bank lose their germination ability after a certain time and therefore need to be propagated regularly. This can be a problem with maintaining big collections since it requires a lot of space, labour, and funding. Also, by the time varieties adapt to the conditions of the trial fields and risk to lose attributes they had when they were grown locally in different regions. 

The idea of a community seed bank is to preserve such traditional local seeds through a large network of seed savers that cultivate them "in situ", i.e. "on farm" and "in garden". It is a way of decentralized and active preservation that helps to overcome the space issue and the adaption issue.

Project goal

The aim is to create a Community Seed bank (CSB) owned by its members, which will be open to the public, notably food producers, small-scale farmers and consumers. Its main activities will be to preserve and cultivate local seeds, which will be saved, shared and reproduced and passed on to future generations.  

The project comprises the construction of the archive, the establishing of the network, seed savers training, and activities to raise the public awareness on the topic.