Michel and Jude Fanton

Michel and Jude Fanton founded The Seed Savers' Network in Australia in 1986. It quickly attracted national attention. In 1992 they began to take the message of the need to conserve traditional varieties of food plants to over thirty other countries. From 2010 they are focussing on Malaysia and Europe.

Below: Michel (left) and Jude Fanton filming tribals for their documentary, "Our Seeds" in Karnataka, India, 2006.

Below: Here they are late 2009 with Gardening Grandmothers in Chiba Prefecture, Japan.

Below: Clapham Common, London, November, 2010: Founding Editor of Resurgence magazine, Satish Kumar, Jude and Michel Fanton

Michel is French by birth and so has really sharp taste buds. Only fresh, dense flavours satisfy his palate. A polymath, Michel can turn a hand to anything, but is most happy when gardening  - harvesting, pruning, planting, raking, watering, even mowing the grass in between the 900 perennials in the Seed Gardens in Byron Bay. He is second most happy when filming tribal cultures in gardens in exotic locations.

Jude was born near several apricot and almond trees in South Australia. Taste buds sharpened by fresh fruit and wild foods, Jude's culinary skills really only came into their own through cooking with Michel. She is second happiest teaching how to think clearly and appreciate life, read nature and enjoy all aspects of food. Jude is happiest rootling about in the vegie garden, lost in thought, wild harvesting and travelling with Michel. 

Our Foundation and Board

The Seed Savers' Network was founded in 1986. It was a trust for the first fourteen years, and became a foundation in 2000. The Seed Savers Foundation Ltd is registered in Australia as a charity. It is governed by a board and audited each year. The members of the board are Lindsay Smith Moir, Jude Fanton and Jerry Coleby-Williams. Here they are at Jerry's with Michel Fanton at left.

Please read more about our board members below:

1st Director - Lindsay Smith Moir

Since 1996 Lindsay has been the accountant for Seed Savers. He specialises in charitable biodiversity entities.

2nd Director - Jude Fanton

Jude loves to collect wild mushrooms, here Macrolepiota procera (Agaricaceae) that tastes like chicken gathered in cow paddocks in Autumn.

3rd Director - Jerry Coleby-Williams

My life and work can best be outlined using the two fundamental and overlapping ethics of organic growing:

1 Stewardship of the Earth

That is, working for and caring for all things, both living and non-living, including soil, water, air, and both wild and cultivated biodiversity;

2 Care of humanity

Working for the sustainable provision of clean air, clean water, healthy soil, nutritious and affordable food, sound education, rewarding employment, all in a non-exploitative way that also allows people to improve the environment, their homes, and their lives;

3 Re-investing knowledge and skills

By re-investing my knowledge and skills using my spare time, money and energy I aim to support sustainability through the stewardship of the Earth and care of humanity, to build capacity, and to enable others to follow suit, thereby strengthening these two ethics within and between the horticultural and conservation communities;

Stewardship of the Earth and care of humanity

My formal work in biodiversity conservation began in 1982 when I worked in collaboration with the Western Australian Herbarium and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK), researching, collecting and exporting 500 species of Western Australian flora as seeds, cuttings, slides, and herbarium voucher specimens. The focus was on species that had never before been grown in Europe, and collections supported the RBG Kew’s display, education and research programmes.

This work continued when I helped the NSW government to establish Mt Annan Botanic Garden, a Bicentennial Project, in western Sydney in 1986, and was expanded from 1992 to 2003 when I managed the botanical estate of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. At the RBGS Sydney, I drafted their first policy for Environmental Responsibility, and after conducting their first ever time management study, established and created their first plans of management for special educational collections (arboretum and palmetum, Sydney Fernery, Herb Garden, Oriental Garden, First Encounters Garden).

I created the first apprentice training programme (for thirty apprentices), coached and equipped staff (thirty trade and scientific staff) and apprentices so that the RBGS could become organically maintained. At the RBGS, educational outreach work included the creation of the Rare & Threatened plants garden (covering wild and cultivated biodiversity), including personally preparing the site, designing the protective enclosure and planting the first Wollemi pine. The Rare & Threatened plants garden won an award for excellence from the Australian Institute of Horticulture. The RBGS, in conjunction with the NSW Dept of Housing, launched the Community Greening programme.

My television broadcasting work as an organic gardener began in 1985 with an appearance on BBC ‘Gardener’s World’, continuing in the 1990s with appearances on Channel Ten’s ‘Totally Wild’, Channels Seven and Nine, and ABC ‘Gardening Australia’. I have been contracted to regularly record with ‘Gardening Australia’ since 1998, and this work is re-packaged for screening by the Lifestyle Channel and ABC Asia Pacific.

As a consultant for Haymarket Events (2000 - 2001) I created ‘Gardening Australia Live’, the first successful and most visited gardening expo in Sydney city. This expo was the first to include a pest and weed audit, included the largest ever display of Australian flora held in Australia, and the highest exhibitor awards were reserved for sustainable horticulture. This expo formula was adopted by subsequent expos in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane.

My writing career began in the 1990’s with the RBGS and the Friends of the RBGS. I have been regularly writing on sustainable horticulture for Gardening Australia magazine and The Organic Gardener magazine since 2000. I am now the Horticultural Editor for OG magazine.

In 2000 I represented Australia at the Commonwealth of Nation’s ‘South Pacific Herbs Forum’, where I provided a paper on the sustainable use and conservation of wild, indigenous medicinal herbs for local enterprise.

Re-investing knowledge and skills

In 2003, after the NSW government decided not to endorse the organic botanic garden programme at the RBGS, I moved to Brisbane to found ‘Bellis’, Brisbane city’s first model domestic sustainable house and garden. Now a state government experiment, my work and life as a sustainable organic gardener continues to be broadcast from ‘Bellis’ on ABC TV and radio.

Through regular open days, ‘Bellis’ is now part of The Australian Open Garden Scheme and special tours are organised for international students and local sustainability students (like Grovelly TAFE).

I am a director of the Seed Savers’ Foundation, an international organic conservation movement protecting indigenous, traditional and locally adapted crops, and their cultivation by traditional methods. I help with SSF outreach work, editing, and fundraising for projects such as our first documentary ‘Seeds Blong Yumi’. Through the SSF I have helped other allied organisations such as ‘The Total Environment Centre’s ‘Safer Solutions in Your Garden’ project, and am currently working towards an ABC radio national sustainability awards programme.

As an executive member of Queensland Conservation, I have helped initiate the ‘Grow Local’ community project aimed at sound nutrition, local employment, farmland conservation, and transition past peak oil. Through QC I sit on the Queensland Sustainable Agriculture committee, and the Brisbane City Council ‘City Smart’ committee, and I have been actively advocating the inclusion of Soil Carbon Sequestration in the federal government’s Carbon Trading Scheme.

I am an active advocate and participate in Guerilla Gardening, having established the Brisbane wing of this international gardening movement. I am currently a patron of the Australia & New Zealand Solar Energy Society.

Jerry Coleby-Williams Dip. Hort. (Kew), RHS, NEBSM, MAIH
10th March 2009

End of Board members list

Some of our dear friends and supporters

Our webmaster - John Brisbin

When I first met Jude and Michel at the Vaucluse Open Garden Day in 1997 it was an encounter with the strong, organic energy of the living soil itself.

Since that time we have shared many adventures together: me from the perspective of information machines and networks...they form the perspective of cultivating people and ideas in their vast garden of learnings.

As the years have entwined their way into our memories, the technologies of websites and the chemistry of the Seed Savers organisation have both transformed. I work for Research Centres through my company Boab Interactive.

I am presently (2011) based in Goonengerry, near Federal, NSW Laxmi. Here we are at the Ethical Feast second event in the village of Chandwas, near Udaipur, Rajasthan, India in November 2009 before Laxmi was born. The Feast was my initiative and hosted by Jagran Jan Vikas Samiti and Big Medicine.

Friends of Seed Savers - a historical

Vandana Shiva of NAVDANYA Foundation, India

Vandana invited and hosted Michel twice at seed events in the late 1990s in northern India. For information, see Vandanashiva.org and Navdanya.

Dr Vanaja Ramprasad of GREEN Foundation, India

Vanaja founded the GREEN Foundation in the 1980s in Bangalore to work with marginal and tribal farmers on conserving traditional dryland cereals and pulses. They have many projects and collaborations with other organisations and have attracted international attention to their work.

   Vanaja at Seed Savers seed bank, 2001

For more information on GREEN Foundation see greenconserve.com.