Jude Fanton's blog

Seed Savers Tour: North Portugal, Andalucia in Spain and Aragon

Submitted by Jude Fanton on Thu, 17/11/2011 - 08:41

 The Seed Savers screening and courses continues.

Thursday 10: Leave for Coimbra in the north to one of the oldest botanic gardens in Europe, where a kitchen garden has been created recently.
15 - 17h workshop on seeds and seed saving.
17 - 19h workshop on seed savouring with Annelieke - a culinary workshop and afterwards participants will eat the results of their work in an informal dinner.

Friday 10, 20.30h: Screening of "Our Seeds" at a theatre near the Coimbra Botanical Garden - public session with a discussion afterwards, with panelists.

Saturday 12 and Sunday 13: In Coimbra, Introduction to Permaculture course created as  a Seed Savers Tour fund raiser, with an emphasis on seed issues.

Michel and Jude relax in a fishing town on the coast north of Porto. They upload clips above and eat grill sardines. 

Saturday 26th Nov - Screening of "Our Seeds" in Geres in northern Portugal

Sunday 27th - participation at Geres Jornada de Agricultura BioLógica e Soberania Alimentar

Seed Savers Tour of Spain, December 2011

Friday 2nd Dec - visit and presentations at the Andalucia Red de Semillas "Resembrando e Intercambiando" (Seed Savers) in Seville, Andalucia, Spain.

Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th - visit and presentations at the Andalucia Red de Semillas "Resembrando e Intercambiando" (Seed Savers) in Marbella, Andalucia.

Friday 9th Dec - visit and presentations at the Aragon Red de Semillas "Resembrando e Intercambiando" (Seed Savers) in Zaragoza, Aragon.

Beyond Portugal and Spain December to February 2012
We shall be in south-west France from mid-December until February 2012. Let us know if you have contacts in these, or nearby, countries.
... and more than 400 clips we have produced on youtube.com/seedsavers and uploaded in the Youtube player north of here.

Bellingen Seed Savers for Fun: Sept 17+18th

Submitted by Jude Fanton on Sat, 27/08/2011 - 16:30

 All the pleasure is ours when we visit Local Seed Networks. We love it!

This time Irene and David Wallin have been beating the drum;  by the way the couple  coordinating the local seed networks for a while now and this time around they are organising a one day course and have invited us  on Sunday 18th this month of September to teach a course and give a talk and screen one of our films the previous evening that is Saturday night 17th then if i am not mistaken. It will be an exciting weekend for Jude and I to be in beautiful Bellingen, New South Wales Australian Pacific Coast if you dont know well the southern hemisphere that is so close to ancient rainforests...

Jude and I are fired up by the prospect of having participants who really know they onions. It wont be a matter of turning gardeners into seed saves but more like getting into the fine points of producing seeds and strategies to extend the diversity of  food garden and therefore diet. Everyone will learn something. That is the point of the exercise. We certainly like to hear from people who mix their ornemantals and their food plants going to seed. We do ourselves because we cant help loving colours. In any case when you let your gardens go to seed you got flowers for the pleasure of the eyes, you have insects  and butterfiles flowers to garnish daily salads.

At the moment gardeners- seed savers of Bellingen my little finger told me that you certainly have many plants flowering: purple flowered radish and daikons, many kinds of asian brassicas that love to get crossed but all the same  as as crossed as they might be keep on giving us delish bok choys, marigolds, rockets, and the luminous flowers of chicories start to pop up. There are many more but i need to get back to the gardens if you dont mind.

See you soon  in Bellingen!

 

 

Give Peas A Chance

Submitted by Jude Fanton on Thu, 18/08/2011 - 08:54

This design was painted on a large bed sheet by Kathlyn  Brown a fabulous volunteer here at Seed Savers HQ in Byron Bay.

Love is the Seed!

Submitted by Jude Fanton on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 11:39

At the December 2010 Woodford Folk Festival in Australia Dominique Finney coordinator of the Folk Medicine Programme interviews Jude and Michel Fanton. Spontaneous tattooing at DVD signing.

  

Rare Cabbage Setting Seeds in the Sub-tropics

Submitted by Jude Fanton on Mon, 08/08/2011 - 11:29

Brassica carinata produces seeds at 28° south in Byron Bay, Australia. It is a different species to the common cabbage, Brassica oleracea and grows to two metres, producing enough leaves to warrant the varietal name of "Women Meet and Gossip". See more below on saving seeds of common cabbage extracted from The Seed Savers' Handbook.

Seeds and Pesticides Connection

Submitted by Jude Fanton on Fri, 05/08/2011 - 17:07

The highlands of Borneo few degrees from the Equator, there are a very fertile soils, cool nights and warm days to grow temperate vegetables that would not grow in the lowlands. They are exported to mega cities consumers: Tokyo, Osaka, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur etc. Growers typically have small hothouses to protect from monsoon and quite small. Here in Ranau small administrative town at 1200 metres altitude unsuspecting, small time market gardeners buy seeds and pesticides in shop like this.

Barefoot Worker Spraying Fungicides and Insecticides.

Submitted by Jude Fanton on Fri, 05/08/2011 - 16:48

 

All too often agriculture workers do not wear protection when they spray pesticides. This person I met in Borneo Malaysia is a migrant worker named Paulus coming from Flores Island in Indonesia. They spray fungicides on the tomato leaves and also some insecticides to kill insect a vector for fungal diseases in tomatoes. Bayer and Monsanto do not train their resellers to wear protective clothing and wear rubber gloves or wear shoes. This is is barefoot

Selling Pesticides to Unsuspecting Farmers

Submitted by Jude Fanton on Thu, 04/08/2011 - 08:22

This is one of a dozen videos that we shot and posted  in our 'Pushing Pesticides' playlist on youtube.com/seedsavers. We are in Kundasang a little village, in the highlands of Sabah, Borneo. Nothing evil on the part of the seller. He does not know himself that appropriate clothing should be worn when using pesticides. Selling them is just a way for him to make a living. His job is to convince his clients it is easy to use hormones to induce their  pineapples to flower. He does not concern himself with the dangers of their use.

Film clip interview of Michel and Jude Fanton

Submitted by Jude Fanton on Sat, 04/06/2011 - 10:06

Australian cultural icon, Woodford Folk Festival with an attendance of over 100 000, invited Michel and Jude Fanton of Seed Savers to give three presentations in December 2010 north of Brisbane. They were on The Nexus between Garden and Health, on Trends in the Pacific Diet and a Natural Health Panel. Organiser of the Folk Medicine Programme, naturopath Dominique Finney interviewed Michel and Jude after their presentations. See the link to the clip below and more about Dominique's work at www.medicineroom.net, 

GMO Rape Seeds Threaten Major Japanese Vegetables, Grandmothers Resist

Submitted by Jude Fanton on Mon, 28/02/2011 - 16:20

      

One of our former interns during 2001, Masami S, writes from Japan: One thing I am concerned about is GMO rape [canola] seeds. They are scattered beside the road from the port to the mill. The situation is especially bad in Mie and Chiba. We Japanese are proud and fond of the diversity of our Brassica vegies like daikon, turnip and green leaves like Mizuna and Mibuna. Some, such as turnips and those green leaves, possibly cross-pollinate with rape seeds. But I have good news too, about young people and grandmothers. 
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