ABSTRACT
The recent popularity of community seed banks raises the question of whether they are able to address the technical issues inherent in their operations, considering the specific local contexts in which they are located. Community seed banks that are set up without a proper understanding of the complexities of seed management may have a short lifespan. In this chapter, we discuss the minimum set of technical criteria and the issues that must be addressed by those who wish to operate community seed banks. To some degree, the technical issues depend on the type of seed bank (see Chapter 3 for our classification framework), but many are relevant to all seed banks. Technical issues emerge throughout the cycle of seed management, from the early stage of selecting which crop species and varieties to keep (and that selection may change over time) to the documentation of the collection and its use. A number of guides offer useful knowledge and practices (e.g. Fanton and Fanton, 1993; Saad and Rao, 2001; Fanton et al., 2003; Seeds of Diversity, 2014), but we have found that few seed banks are aware of or make good use of these resources.
