Seed banks that outlast the programme
Introduction
GEDAREF — How repayment in seed rather than cash keeps a cooperative viable after external funding ends. What began as a local difficulty is now a structural one, and it shapes daily life for every household here. This report sets out what was measured, what it cost, and what changed.
The problem, before the work started
Seed distributed as aid disappears in one season; seed lent against a harvest does not. Households absorbed the difference themselves — in time, in money, and in risks they would not otherwise take. Those costs rarely appear in a budget line, but they decide whether a family recovers or slips further.
The bank does not belong to us. We lend it, we get it back, and next year it belongs to the village down the road.
Yusuf Adam, cooperative chair
How the work was delivered
Cooperatives borrow from a seed bank and repay in kind after harvest, stocking the next community's bank. The approach was chosen because it survives the conditions here: staff turnover, seasonal access, and a population that may move at short notice.
- Varieties chosen with farmers, matched to the local rainfall pattern
- Repayment set in seed, not cash, so a bad market does not break the loan
- Storage built to a design a cooperative can repair with local materials
- Committee bookkeeping taught alongside the agronomy
What changed beyond the immediate goal
The direct objective was met, but the effects that matter most were the ones we did not set out to produce.
1. Independence from procurement
Cooperatives running a full cycle no longer need a purchase order to plant, which removes the single longest delay in the season.
2. Varieties that keep improving
Farmers return the seed that performed, so each cycle concentrates what actually works on that soil.
3. A model that travels
Three neighbouring villages built their own banks after visiting, with no funding from us at all.
What comes next
The coming phase hands the audit to a federation of cooperatives and reduces our role to the initial stock. The measure of success is not how long we stay, but whether the work continues once we have gone.
