Zimbabwe's Farmers Build Their Own Seed Vaults

Harare-based CTDT has supported farmer-managed community seed banks since the first opened in 1999 in Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe. Each bank is run by an elected committee of local farmers who store, regenerate and swap traditional varieties of sorghum, millets, cowpea, groundnut and Bambara groundnut that hybrid maize pushed out of fields. By early 2025 CTDT had established 20 community seed banks across 12 districts, and in February 2025 it made its first deposit of Zimbabwean farmer varieties at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault under the Crop Trust's BOLD programme. CTDT says its programmes in food security, biodiversity and policy reach over 500,000 people in Zimbabwe each year.