Across Africa, erratic and less predictable rainfall, higher temperatures, heat spells, and recurring droughts are predicted to become more frequent.This is leading to a change of cropping seasons and growing cycles and occurrence of new pests and diseases.As a result of these irregularities and uncertainties, farmers can no longer rely on crops and crop varieties that used to do well, with negative impacts on nutrition and food security and the capacity of farmers to withstand shocks.It is expected that climate change will reduce agrobiodiversity.Farmers we meet and work with all over the world give us the same message: having better access to crop and varietal diversity helps them to adapt to climate change.Increased access to inter and intracrop genetic diversity may provide farmers an opportunity to switch to crops that are more resilient under new conditions, e.g. they may switch from maize to millet in rain-stressed areas.Farmers may also switch to varieties of the same crop that are better adapted to their local situation.In most agricultural farming systems, farmers continue to rely to a very large degree on farmer managed seed systems.They depend on their own farm-saved seed, community seed saving practices, social seed exchange and seed purchased at nearby markets or from petty vendors.Improved varieties do not always reach farmers.Improved varieties can also often not compete with the local diversity, which is better adapted to the harsh conditions and local needs in many agricultural environments in Africa.However, the potential of local diversity is not always well understood, and with rural populations becoming older and youngsters migrating to urban areas, knowledge on agrobiodiversity is disappearing.The implications as well as opportunities of the feminization of agriculture on agrobiodiversity and local seed systems are not clear yet.Although some international and regional seed and seed related agreements exist (e.g. the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya Protocol to the CBD, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) national seed harmonization agreement under the COMESA Seed Harmonization Implementation Plan (COMSHIP) 1 , national governments and key agricultural organizations (e.g.NARS, gene banks, universities), as key actors in seed sector development, often have limited capacity to implement these agreements.Photos 5 and 6: Hoima Community seed bank in Uganda (top) and Nyando community seed bank in Kenya (bottom).