The project aims at developing a cost effective, community seed/gene banks for effective conservation of crops genetic resources. In other to build legitimacy and strong local institution for the community seed bank project, the project will embark on a series of sensitization meetings after which participating farmers and communities will be selected. The technical packages made up of various training and technical guidelines to facilitate the involvement of farmers through a participatory selection exercise, main crop and priority species to be integrated into the system,seed collection, storage techniques as well as domestication will be carried out.

1. Key Outputs, Outcomes and Innovations
? What were the key outputs that make your project stand out and were critical to the success of the project?

The conditions for the success of the project included
1. Community seed banks managed by a legitimate farmer organization
2. The development of a local resource persons so that the system created will be functional even after the external support is pulled out,
3. Seed quality determines the success and failure of any seed business including community seed banks. Hence the creation of women seed savers and also the community seed banks should use improved seed storage technologies,
4. The documentation of crop species and varieties and associated information and traditional knowledge was very important
5. The development of self-financing mechanism viz. community biodiversity management fund and seed fund as a regular financial resources generation mechanism.
Specifically; the following project objectives were met and the key output of the projects were as follows;
1. Objective: Identify gaps in seed availability and biodiversity conservation
Key Out put that made the project Standout
Understood the prevailing seed quality, seed requirement, difficulties in getting good quality and quantity of seed, and future needs for Seed conservation.
Formation of a 10 member Community Action Committee
Discovered the wealth of local knowledge in the Community.
Project had a Good Working Relationship with Government Stakeholders.
The project was able to understand the prevailing seed and local crop varieties in and around the community.
2. Objective: Community Seed Bank Construction.
Key Out put that made the project Standout
Location of seed bank made accessible to members of the village. Land Donated by Community used for the Seed Bank Construction.
400CM X 335CM X 330CM SEED PRESERVATION House Constructed.
Objective 3: Formation and training of specialized women Local seed networks (LSNs):?Train the Trainer? Sheda Women Local Seed Networks (LSNs) and Collection of local and indigenous crop seeds for storage.
Key Out put that made the project Standout
40 Women Train the Trainer trainees
200 Women trained by Trainee participants and LSNs Expanded with 200 Local Women.
LSNs ?Train the Trainer? Manual developed.
Seeds of Maize varieties, Cowpea, Sorghum, Millet, Local varieties Tomatoes, Sesame identified.
Seeds collected for Storage in the Seed bank.

Objective 4: Formation Technical capacity for management of the Community Seed Bank especially in the area of seed viability assessment, seed storage methods, maintaining seed purity and quality and data recording.
Key Out put that made the project Standout
10 Man (5 men and 5 Women) Technical Capacity for Auditing System Up and Running.
20 Technical members for the management of the Seed bank trained.
Objective 5: Motivate Over 100 Household in the community for participatory seed management process and conservation of their heritage for future generations via organizing community seed bank awareness (Open day Activities).
Increased sensitization and public awareness of the importance of seed banks to Conservation.
5 Open Day programmes and one seed bank Commissioning Programme carried out.
0ver 500 persons from communities around Gwagwalada, Sheda, Bako, and Yangoji visit the Seed bank.

? What would you say are the key innovations that make your project stand out and were critical to successful environmental, social and economic outcomes?

Giving Community Women key roles to play was a key innovative model. Women are said to be the custodians of Biodiversity with Knowledge to bolster food security. 65% of the participating community members were women. 53% ages 40-65, 47% ages 18-39. Women participation was supported by their husbands. This saw more women take decision on dietary requirements for their families and strong participatory roles in management and benefits sharing.

? How did you engage the local community and key stakeholders to participate in the project?

Achieving social inclusion was to emphasize ?local ownership?. Setting up spaces for dialogue that allowed for the active and inclusive participation of local people ensured that priorities were determined locally and that local concerns were at the core of all activities.

Environmental Impact
The community seed/gene banks was able to effective conserve wild relatives of crops, minor agricultural crops of the Gwari people which are now susceptible to genetic erosion. A total of 175 Varieties of 35 crop species were saved in the community seed bank. Seed exchange and multiplication activities influenced the increase in cultivation of new varieties. Seed bank produced and sold over 10 different varieties of local Tomatoes, Yams and Garden eggs. In addition, the project was able to develop of protocols for conservation of healthy seed and training of local communities. In making Biodiversity assessable and available, the project successfully offered multiple channels of access and availability of seeds at the community level. It equally helped maintained locally adapted seed at a low cost as well as fostered seed exchanges at local and supra-local levels. Access to novel diversity not conserved locally was core to the project?s Environmental impact.

Socio-economic impacts.

In promoting conservation of indigenous plants, the project offered opportunities for responsible business development at community level. Thus armed with these tools, community members could achieve industry specifications/requirements as well as access new markets. In all, we have created a local base healthy ecosystems which greatly facilitated economic growth not only within the Forest Community but beyond the community through trade of seed products.

Policy Impacts

Talks are undoing with the CBN to include local Women farmers of indigenous food crops to the Anchor borrowers programme for micro-credits. We are also working the National Seed Council in the establishment of a Law backing inclusion of Indigenous Food plants to the National Food Security Plan.

Gender

The project team had 4 women (80%) out of 6 members, >60% of the participating farmers were women. >60% of the participating farmers were women. 53% of them were older women between the ages 40-65 while about 47% were between ages 18-39