Four pairs of hands holding freshly collected tree seed
Climate Resilience · Climate Adaptation · Biodiversity Conservation

Climate-Resilient Seed Collectives

A community-owned seed bank for Tseminyu, conserving indigenous seeds and building community stewardship for food security, biodiversity, and climate resilience in Nagaland.

Scroll
Why a seed bank

Our seeds. Our heritage. Our future.

Kenono is working towards building seed banks to preserve biodiversity and Rengma Naga agroecological heritage.

Why it matters

  • Protects our food diversity. Local varieties are kept in circulation rather than lost one household at a time.
  • Strengthens farmers’ resilience. Seed adapted to these hills, and to a changing climate, stays available every season.
  • Reduces dependence on external inputs. Farmers draw on their own stock instead of buying hybrid seed each year.
  • Builds a sustainable future for our communities. Seed, knowledge, and income stay in the village.

How it is built

  • Community owned and managed, through the village’s own institutions and the Zunpha cooperative.
  • Conserves local and traditional seeds, documented by variety, source village, and grower.
  • Shares quality seeds with the community on a loan basis, so the stock grows with every harvest.
  • A training and learning hub, with a demonstration garden and exhibition hall.
  • Part of the ECHO Asia network of community-level seed banks, and modelled on North East Network’s Chizami seed bank.
The seed bank

Kenono’s plan for the structure.

A single-storey building with a veranda, sited on community land in Tseminyu District: storage, cleaning, packing, and records under one roof, with a training hall for farmer groups, a drying yard, demonstration beds, and rainwater harvesting.

WelcomeN1Seedstorage2Cleaning& drying3Packing& labelling4Training &exhibition5Office &records6Store /utility7Drying yard8Demonstration garden9Rainwatertank
  • 01

    Seed storage room

    Cool, dark, and dry; sealed containers, labelled and logged.

  • 02

    Seed cleaning and drying area

    Winnowing, sorting, and drying down to storage moisture.

  • 03

    Packing and labelling room

    Variety, source village, grower, and harvest date on every packet.

  • 04

    Training and exhibition hall

    Seed-saving workshops for farmer groups and a display of the district’s varieties.

  • 05

    Office and records room

    Stock, loan, and visitor registers.

  • 06

    Store and utility

    Tools, containers, and drying racks.

  • 07

    Seed drying yard

    Open sun-drying beside the building.

  • 08

    Demonstration garden

    Grow-out plots to multiply stock and keep varieties true.

  • 09

    Rainwater harvesting tank

    Water for the garden and the cleaning area.

Site plan, not to scale

How it works

Seed goes out, and comes back doubled.

The bank will put seeds to use, where a farmer can borrow a cup of seed and must return two cups after harvest. This way, the stock grows every season and every variety is regrown rather than left in a jar.

01

Collect

Farmers and knowledge holders bring in the varieties they still grow, with the story of where each came from.

02

Clean and dry

Seed is cleaned, dried to storage moisture, and checked before it enters the store.

03

Store and record

Sealed, labelled, and entered in the stock register, with germination checked each year.

04

Lend

Any member can borrow seed for the season. One cup out, two cups back.

05

Grow out

The demonstration garden and group plots regrow stock so it stays viable and true to type.

Low-cost, low-power storage

Following ECHO Asia’s work with community seed banks across Southeast Asia, the bank uses appropriate technology that works without reliable electricity: passive cooling for the store, vacuum sealing, local desiccants, and solar drying.

Earthbag cool roomBuried clay cisternsBicycle-pump vacuum sealingLocal desiccantsSolar seed drying rackHerbal pest repellentsSealed containersStock, loan, and visitor registers
Owned and operated by women

Seeds are central to women’s agency in Naga climate discourse.

In Naga communities, women historically have preserved and conserved seeds for future generations. The seed bank will be owned and operated by women to honour this tradition, making it central to the intersection of gender and climate action.

Women collecting native seed from cut branches beside a forest stream
Collecting native seed along a forest stream, Tseminyu
Eight women in Rengma traditional dress standing before a bamboo and thatch structure
Seed keepers

Seed has passed between women for generations. The bank keeps that line unbroken.

Owned and operated by women, the seed bank puts the village’s seed in the same hands that have always held it, with the storage, records, and training to carry it further.

Partners

Partnering with global leaders in agroecology.

The seed bank is built with three partners: one that finances rural innovation, one that runs a regional network of community seed banks, and one that built Nagaland’s first.

Funding and convergenceNAB Foundation

NABARD’s not-for-profit subsidiary, set up to take innovative projects to rural India through convergence with like-minded partners.

nabfoundation.in Seed bank network and trainingECHO Asia

Runs a regional seed bank in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and trains partner staff to establish community-level seed banks: in 2017 it sent 4,600 trial packets of 175 locally adapted varieties to partners in 29 countries.

echocommunity.org The Chizami modelNorth East Network

A women’s rights organisation whose Chizami seed bank in Phek District, run by the Chizami Women Society, keeps 156 traditional varieties and lends them on the two-cups-for-one rule.

northeastnetwork.org
Bamboo containers of seed: still from Seeds of Connection by North East Network
Watch

Seeds of Connection

Community knowledge holders in Nagaland on the seeds they keep, filmed by North East Network, Chizami.

Watch on YouTube