These hands are holding characteristic heads of the rare species of Georgian Zanduri wheat, Triticum timopheevii.
© Hannes Lorenzen
Seeds4All is a census platform aiming to give visibility to all European organisations that collect, enrich, produce, disseminate and sustainably use traditional and new varieties of seeds belonging to the public domain, freely reproducible and not genetically modified.
By presenting a broad range of organisations – NGOs, citizens' initiatives, businesses, formal & informal networks – as well as by exhibiting the number of cultivated plant varieties they keep, Seeds4All wishes to promote this emerging sector, while creating a much needed space for common knowledge and experience sharing.
Seeds4All hopes to become a medium facilitating access to information about seed-swaps and market development
opportunities in Europe; as well as to demonstrate how rich and diverse are the kinds of initiatives dedicated to
preserve agrobiodiversity and how they can learn from each other, in order to grow and be spread everywhere.
From July 10 to 12, the Seeds4All coordination team gathered several experts and activits committed to the defence of agricultural biodiversity and food sovereigny, on the island of Pellworm, for an informal meeting on seeds and sustainable agriculture.
© Adèle Pautrat
Seeds4all organised this seminar on the future of local seed production together with members of the local association “Ökologisch Wirtschaften!”, that has made a huge contribution since the 1990s to moving the local economy towards greater sustainability and resilience.
Our main goal was to begin a discussion on the future possibilities for local agriculture to develop, specialise and adapt, through seed breeding and production, to the already changing climate and environmental conditions.
We particularly met a local cereal farmer, Jan Gonne Thams, 26, who has recently started producing his own organic seed. We invited several breeders from Portugal, Denmark, Belgium and Germany to attend the meeting for exchange of practices: Anders Borgen from Denmark, Carl Vollenweider from Germany, Lucas Van den Abeele from Belgium and Stefan Doeblin from accross Europe...
The programme included visits to Jan Gonne's fields as well as exchanges on the best breeding and farming practices, and we were pleased to welcome other farmers from the island who were keen to listen and share everyone’s experiences.
It is now time to share with you the contents and conclusions of the interviews and discussions we had with the people gathered on the island on July 10th and 11th. Hope you'll enjoy it!
The Seeds4All platform is meant to grow thanks to the input of the seed distributors themselves.
The criteria to comply with...
- Being an organisation geographically located in Europe (not necessarily within the European Union).
- Being committed to the promotion, protection and enhancement of agrobiodiversity.
- Dealing with material belonging to the public domain, freely reproducible and not genetically modified.
If you run or take part in an organisation that meets these principles, you are very welcome to feature it and to contribute to the
inventory!
The Agricultural and Rural Convention for 2020 (ARC2020) and the European Coordination Let’s Liberate Diversity (EC-LLD)
support the vision and the development of the Seeds4All initiative that will help to multiply opportunities for cooperation between biodiversity keepers and to highlight the extent of their commitment, which has been legally insecure for too long.
The delegated act specifying the conditions for marketing seed lots from "organic heterogeneous material" has officially been adopted. We help you
understand what it will change for farmers, seed users and consumers.
No to the EU Plant Passport!
The campaign for Seed sovereignty in connection with ÖBV Via Campesina and other, started a petition against the EU plan passport obligation, which endangers the preservation of traditional fruit and vegetable varieties.
