Seeding Change Nationally - with Sinéad Fortune

This event is free to Permaculture Association members and £6 to non-members.

If you're already a Permaculture Association members, Head to the Campfire Space in the Community Hub for a registration link to this event.

A food revolution starts with seed - around the world, seed diversity is threatened, and yet it is critical for ensuring a secure and robust food system that serves both people and planet.

We need to ensure that there is enough genetic diversity in our seed, for our crops to be resilient to disease and changing climate conditions and yet the Food And Agriculture Organisation estimates that vegetable crops worldwide have lost 75% of their genetic diversity in the past 100 years. On top of that there’s been an increase in patented and genetically modified seed, owned or controlled by a handful of companies.

You can’t do this to open-pollinated seed: a grower can buy seed, save their own and continue to do so for as long as they care. This is called seed sovereignty and there’s a growing worldwide movement to create more of it. It aims to reclaim biodiverse seed, to give growers the right to breed and exchange diverse, open-pollinated seed that can be saved by anyone.

Join us for this campfire event where Sinéad Fortune, Programme Lead and Scotland Coordinator for the Seed Sovereignty UK and Ireland Programme at the Gaia Foundation, will talk to us about these very issues, and, more importantly, how we can get involved!

At a time of climate crisis, there has never been greater urgency to protect and restore global seed diversity, in the hands of farmers, gardeners and communities, not corporations.