In Kenya, community seed banks struggle for recognition

Penulis Asli: Anthony Langat

Artikel ini bersumber dari thinklandscape.globallandscapesforum.org di bawah lisensi Creative Commons.

Moses Odipo’s homestead is a cluster of houses typical of any rural setting in Kenya.

To the discerning eye, one house stands out for its lack of windows. Below its mono-pitched roof are a series of vents that aerate the house. Inside one of its two rooms are wooden shelves lined along the walls, holding recycled transparent glass bottles stuffed with seeds from various crops.

This house serves as the Ambira Community Seed Bank, a community-based organization (CBO) in Ugunja, Siaya County, in western Kenya.

Hundreds of glass bottles with different seeds sit on the wooden shelves like works of art in an exhibition. Even with the streaks of light from the few vents falling on the jars, you can barely make out the types of seed in them. The seed bank is kept intentionally cool and dark to keep the seeds safe.

Since its establishment in 2024, the Ambira Community Seed Bank has been lending and receiving donations of seeds from its over 2,000 members, ensuring that local farmers always have access to the seeds they need.

Across Kenya, communities are increasingly organizing through community-based organizations to develop seed banks for indigenous seeds that have been lost in favor of hybrid seeds.

In November 2025, the High Court of Kenya quashed a law that had criminalized the traditional practices of saving, multiplying and exchanging seeds. The government is now reviewing the law and implementing measures to support seed saving, according to Daniel Wanjama, a coordinator with the Seed Savers Network.

Just outside his homestead, Odipo’s crop of maize is nearing harvest as the leaves, husks and cobs are visibly dried. This season, he hopes to harvest at least 12 sacks from his acre of land. The seeds he has planted are a popular indigenous variety in Siaya, known locally as ‘Panadol.’

The seed banks of Siaya County

The Ambira Community Seed Bank is one of three seed banks established in Siaya by the Tembea Futures Institute, a community-based organization based in Ugunja.

Joshua Amollo, a programs officer at Tembea, says local farmers needed cheaper alternatives to expensive hybrid seeds, as well as drought-resistant crops that could also withstand pests and diseases.

With funding from German development agency GIZ and training provided by the Seed Savers Network, the three seed banks launched in 2024. Each seed bank is hosted by a community member who volunteered to store the seeds on their land.

The Ambira seed bank currently holds 13 varieties of maize, 14 varieties of beans, three varieties of millet and eight varieties of sorghum.

“During the planting season, farmers come to the seed bank for seeds, and we record the quantity they have taken,” says Evans Akwiri, the seed bank’s loan manager. “After harvesting, we expect them to bring two times the quantity they took from the seed bank.”

The community also has a genebank on Odipo’s farm, where crops whose seeds can’t be stored are continuously planted.

“In our genebank, we have 10 varieties of cassava, 10 varieties of sweet potatoes and six varieties of bananas,” says Odipo. Other crops in the gene bank include pawpaws, sugar canes and vegetables.

In their two years of operation so far, Amollo says the seed banks have collected and multiplied many seeds that had been at risk of disappearing. “This has ensured that more people are food-secure and also improved their livelihoods as they have enough to sell,” he says.

Aggrey Aluso, the executive director of Resilience Action Network Africa (RANA), says the seed bank in Ambira is an encouraging example of how communities are adapting to increasingly erratic climate patterns by turning to indigenous locally adapted seeds.

A landmark ruling for seed saving in Kenya

There are countless other community seed banks saving and multiplying seeds across Kenya. At the national level, the government runs the Genetic Resources Research Institute (GeRRI), which is responsible for conserving plant, animal, aquatic and microbial genetic resources. One of its objectives is to “document and disseminate plant genetic resources and data.”

GeRRI works with farmers in the country to enhance crop varieties like sorghum and finger millet. It has made nearly 53,000 accessions of about 1,800 plant species. As of 2024, it had backed up 3,850 of these to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

However, national-level policies have not supported community seed banks, and farmer groups like the Ambira Community Seed Bank have no relations with GeRRI. This is due in part to the government’s push for modern seeds and farming methods, which have displaced indigenous seeds and seed saving practices.

The Seeds and Plant Varieties Act regulates Kenya’s seed industry. It oversees variety registration, seed certification, quality control and plant breeder rights to protect farmers from counterfeit seeds.

The law, which dates back to the 1970s, had criminalized the multiplication, exchange and sale of seeds, making them punishable with jail terms and fines.

Smallholder farmers from across the country eventually took the government to the High Court, which ruled in their favor and found those punitive terms to be unconstitutional. Greenpeace called the ruling as a ‘decisive victory for food sovereignty and climate justice.’

Elizabeth Atieno, a food campaigner at Greenpeace, says the seed laws reflected a clear policy bias toward the commercial seed sector at the expense of smallholder and indigenous seed systems, and community seed banks still operate with little to no formal legal status, funding or policy support.

“Most survive on the efforts of farmers and a handful of partner organizations,” she says. “Without active recognition and resourcing from the government, they remain exposed.”

What lies ahead for Kenya’s community seed banks?

Almost a year since the seed law was overturned, Wanjama is optimistic that the government is committed to working towards incorporating community seed banks into the national seed regime: “The review of the seed laws has been initiated. The government has constituted a committee on how to integrate farmer-managed seed systems into the law, as it had been previously ignored.”

Wanjama also points to the country’s new agroecology strategy, which aims to transition agriculture away from chemical dependency and toward sustainable, nature-positive solutions, including through seed saving and community seed banks.

“We [stakeholders] are currently discussing a budget proposal to fund the activities in the strategy,” he says.

Despite the ruling, there are no structures yet to enable community seed banks to formally sell seeds. “[The government] realized that it was a mistake and it was unconstitutional not to allow them to sell,” says Wanjama. “However, there are currently no procedures.”

Atieno is cautious about the ongoing review of the seed law. She believes the saving, sharing and sale of seeds should be fully legalized, with no requirement for seeds and community seed banks to be registered or subject to ‘prescriptive quality assurance controls.’

Aluso believes civil society groups still need to push for policies that allow communities to benefit from their own indigenous seeds and seed banks. “We need to robustly push for more transformative policies that will help communities [operate] seed banks and use organic fertilizers at a scale that can help them meet their subsistence needs but also earn their livelihoods,” he says.

“Many of them are currently operating just at subsistence level, so there’s a huge opportunity […] to invest in and support those kind of ventures to advance our resilience capacity.”

Wanjama hopes that farmers and community seed banks will eventually be better supported by policies and funding to benefit from the sale of their seeds.

“There is progress in Kenya’s seed laws as the government is reviewing the law. The seed business is still a preserve of the multinationals. Community seed banks should be allowed to sell seeds so that smallholder farmers can also benefit.”

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