Jude and Michel Fanton, Founders of the organisation, are here in their 1000 species Diversity Seed Gardens in Byron Bay, Australia, 28.3 lat south
Action People Needed to Start Seed Networks
This is all about producing our own seeds and exchanging them with others - Free the Seed! - not planting corporate seeds.Community groups, indigenous organisations, Transition Town groups, schools and individual collectors have joined hands for local seed action. Seed Savers is now able to accept registration of Local Seed Networks from groups all over the world.
We have helped people and organisations to create community-based seed networks and to document local food growing practices and local traditional varieties within Australia and elsewhere. We are mobile and travel lightly to places such as:
- Indonesia in 2012 with guidellines for an eco-region in Tanjung Ringgit, Lombok and an eco-village in Taman Petanu, Bali;
- Malaysia in 2012 to help establish a seed network, Eat Roots and Shoots;
- Portugal in 2011 for the Seed Savers Tour with the Free the Seed group: "Sementes Livres";
- Papua New Guinea 2007/2008/2009 Tari Southern Highlands, (CBHC seed projects);
- Afghanistan 2002/2003 (Faculty of Agriculture in Herat to help start a seed bank with Japanese NGO, NICCO projects);
- Solomon Islands where we travelled twelve times 1995 - 2008, for projects like the taro collection fair in Malaita (Kastom Garden Association and Planting Material Network), the amazing banana project in Makira Island at Manivovo Training Centre, and a Melanesian Seed Saving Conference, etc.;
- Ecuador Guardianes de Semillas in 2003 who have gone on to do incredible seed work since;
- Cambodia in 1998 Pursat Province with Dept of Women's and Veteran's Affairs with Quakers Australia, on training trainers on local seed collection, multiplication and distribution;
- Cuba seed project with Urbana Agricultura in 1995/6, and translation and publication of our Handbook in Spanish.
... and many more people and places.
Vandana Shiva was very active in Greece largest seed exchange convened by Peliti a fantastic organisation that run the show with eoseveral thousand gardeners turning up to swap seeds and plants. Everthing was on barter or freely given. Entry was also free so was the food that was cooked on the spot with what participants brought in and with the money Vandana contributed
Our one-hour documentary translated into French. We filmed "Our Seeds" in eleven countries and edited it for a Pacific audience. The original audio track is in English, but there is a dub in Pigin English that is understood in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Additionally when we released the film, in 2008, we added English subtitles, and also French subtitles for the people of French Polynesia, Marquesas, Wallis and Futuna, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Please enjoy this script which celebrates the keepers of the seed.
Papas Spyros was one of the thousands of family seeds swappers at the Peliti Seed Festival in Paranesti, northern Greece 10-13 May 2013. He invited us to spend time with him in his mountain village and parish near Karpenissi. He is one of the rare farmers and goat herders around there not just to be pesticide-free but very importantly to be a diversity farmer using local wild plants for his fifty goats and unique cow. We are uploading videos of his methods slowly as connections are sporadic and at best slow from where we presently are, in Albania.
You can watch our one-hour documentary, "Our Seeds" with French subtitles here. You may now download the transcript in both English and French as a pdf below.
Vous pouvez regarder notre documentaire d'une heure, "Our Seeds" (Nos Semences). Vous pouvez downloader le pdf des sous-titres de la narration dans sa totalite en anglais et francais en-bas.
We, Michel and Jude Fanton, are on a five-month Seed Savers Tour 2013:
25-27 April - New Caledonia working with leaders of Pacific island nations at Oceania 21 on strategies for food sustainability and solutions for climate change.
We ensured that the preservation of traditional varieties of food plants was included in the Accord.
Now free - a pdf of our 90 page booklet on how to establish, run and promote a Local Seed Network so you can preserve local and traditional varieties of food plants, those that deliver nutrient dense food, culture and health.
Download and use this manual wherever you are in the world.
Once you have formed your Local Seed Network, register it on this website
The New Caledonian Minister of Sustainable Development, Hon Anthony Lecren, and the convenor of Oceania 21 (a part of the Agenda 21 process), hosted us, Michel and Jude Fanton in Noumea last week. Oceania 21 was held in the cavernous hall of the South Pacific Commission Conference centre with 10m high ceilings. Languages were both French and English. We interacted with various ministers and other lovely people from around the Pacific. At the breaks we compared notes on the mango varieties in our gardens, present copies of our DVDs and made friends and liaisons.
See report in the Rural Weekly October 2012 by Megan Kinninment with photos by Megan too.
