Empowered women lead seed security in western Kenya and crop diversification

This article highlights how women-led initiatives in western Kenya are strengthening seed security and promoting crop diversification through CGIAR Multifunctional Landscapes–supported interventions. It documents the role of women farmers in conserving, exchanging, and managing diverse seed systems that enhance resilience, improve nutrition, and reduce vulnerability to climate and market shocks. Through community seed banks, participatory seed selection, and locally adapted crop diversification strategies, women are driving inclusive, nature-positive agricultural transformation. The experience from western Kenya demonstrates how empowering women as custodians of agrobiodiversity delivers co-benefits for food security, livelihoods, and ecosystem resilience, offering scalable lessons for integrated landscape and seed system approaches in other smallholder contexts.