India’s new National Gene Bank is vital for safeguarding food security but challenges in community seed bank integration remain

In the Union Budget for 2025-26,  finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the second ‘National Gene Bank’ that will hold a million germplasm lines to be set up for future food and nutritional security. 

She mentioned that it is designed to support both public and private sectors in conserving genetic diversity and will provide conservation support to both public and private sectors for genetic resources.  

Experts welcome this decision given the unfolding influence of climate change on genetic diversity and the need to converge the efforts of public, private and communities for the larger objective of protecting diversity.  

This convergence is expected to explore solutions or multiple challenges that include financial, technical, and organisational by the community seed banks (CSBs) functioning at the ground level of genetic diversity. 

This will ensure that all stakeholders including the private industry adhere to three principles of conservation, sustainable utilisation, and fair and equitable distribution of benefits embedded in the international treaty, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD 1993), and the National Biodiversity Act, 2002 (NBA 2002). 

The broad mandate of the new national gene bank provides a hope of synchronising the solitary efforts of each of these stakeholders, eventually conserving the dwindling genetic diversity both ex-situ and in-situ. The national gene bank is a facility that stores seeds of various crops, wild species and trees for future generations, whereas, the CSBs provide an opportunity for interaction and integration of traditional seeds into an informal system for the promotion of linkages to backup genetic resources locally which can serve as building blocks of crop improvement, food security and sustainable community development. 

Challenges faced by community seed banks 

CSBs are locally managed institutions that collect, store and share seeds. They can include major and minor crops, and medicinal plants as well as neglected and underutilised species. CSBs are also important in promoting and sustaining the cultivation of a variety of crops. 

While CSBs are serving the nation with in-situ conservation they are presently struggling to secure funding for proper storage, infrastructure, equipment for seed cleaning, and training farmers. Inadequate and improper village structures fail to withstand extreme weather events leading to poor seed viability and diminishing collection efforts impacting the long-term sustainability of CSBs. 

Effective leadership and community engagement are crucial for the successful operation of a seed bank, several challenges can arise in managing decision-making processes. CSBs severely lack technical expertise taking a heavy toll on proper seed storage techniques, including appropriate temperature and humidity control, which are essential for long-term seed viability. 

India set up its first national gene bank in 1996 by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research -National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (ICAR-NBPGR) in New Delhi. Today, the ICAR-NBPGR gene bank holds 0.47 million units of germplasm entries as per the database maintained by the organisation.

These include cereals (0.17 million accessions), millets (more than 60,600 accessions), legumes (over 69,200 accessions), oilseeds (more than 63,500 accessions), and vegetables (nearly 30,000 accessions). 

The initiative of the Union government came up almost three decades after the establishment of the first National Gene Bank. Sitharaman indicated that this bank will be set up for future food and nutritional security and provide conservation support to both public and private sectors for genetic resources. However, she highlighted the importance of the second gene bank as the one for ensuring food and nutritional security. 

The features and significance of the new bank are described as the largest conservation facility in India, expanding germplasm storage capacity beyond the existing 0.47 million accessions in the first gene bank. 

It ensures germplasm accessibility for future generations, preventing genetic erosion due to habitat loss or overexploitation. It is intended to protect India’s agricultural heritage by preserving native, traditional, and rare plant varieties. This bank aligns with global conservation efforts, including India’s Seed Vault in Chang La (Ladakh) and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norway). Also, the primary ex-situ conservation objective will ensure crop diversity for future breeding, research, and sustainable farming.

Connecting  community seed banks

Connecting the new gene bank with the CSBs will ensure food and nutritional security and sustainable utilisation of the plant genetic resources (PGR). In India with its native conservator communities in the biodiversity hotspots of the country, linking the CSBs with the national gene bank has become a progressive idea. India has many biodiversity-rich areas, including the Western Ghats, the Eastern Ghats, the Northeast, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands etc. 

Therefore, the native conservators must be made part of this second national gene bank initiative of the union government to realise the objectives of food and nutritional security for today and posterity. 

Inclusion of communities that are already involved in the conservation of local diversity and its utilisation through CSBs is essential as the new gene bank will adopt modern technologies for their evaluation and development into modern varieties while complying with international legal instruments like CBD & ITPGRFA and the domestic legislations, National Biodiversity Act (2002) and PPVFRA (2002).  

A mechanism needs to be developed to include the community seed banks, the associated traditional knowledge as a heritage for conservation, and sharing the benefits of its utilisation with the communities keeping it alive and in practice for centuries.

A few initiatives of models of community seed banks linked to national gene banks often involved a collaborative approach where local communities manage seed collections of their traditional varieties within a community seed bank, while maintaining access to and sharing genetic material with the national gene bank, allowing for both in-situ conservation at the community level and a broader ex-situ conservation at the national level. 

A few simple and smaller examples include initiatives in Nepal, Bhutan, Mexico and South Africa where community seed banks actively exchange seeds with national gene banks, benefiting from technical support and contributing valuable local varieties to the national collection. 

To build a model of a functional national gene bank networked with CSBs, a serious exercise needs to be attempted quickly to find quick solutions to counter global climate change. Traditionally the public sector institutions viz., the agricultural universities and ICAR were utilising the plant genetic resources (PGR) for the benefit of farmers with no profit-making motto. 

Whereas, crop varieties or hybrids developed by the industry are solely for making profits utilising the PGR conserved by the communities. It is time that the private parties also share the national responsibility as it so far has been largely utilitarian concerning paying back to the native conservator communities. The benefit sharing comes to the fore at this juncture in tune with the Nagoya Protocol (2010). The private parties need to pay back in tune with the global as well as domestic legal instruments. 

Their role in contributing to research such as evaluation of the diversity assembled and conserved in the national gene bank as well as genome sequencing of trait-linked mini-core sets.  To effectively utilise the PGR maintained by the second national gene bank and establish a working relationship with the user industry, the model must provide space to the CSBs and the industry in the governing body of the national gene bank. This model will effectively involve the germplasm-hungry industry to access the large crop diversity existing in the repository with a network of CSBs linked to it. The advantages arising out of this model will be mind-boggling while the benefit sharing with native communities will be respected by all stakeholders involved.  

Author is the president of Plant Protection Association of India and Former Head, ICAR-NBPGR, Hyderabad.

Views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect that of Down To Earth.