A new film from The Gaia Foundation’s Seed Sovereignty series celebrates The Leakey Bean Collection. It’s a story of seed as a source of connection to plants and people who have come before, as well as those yet to follow; deep rooted but always evolving. Watch the film: Read the interactive story: Since the […]
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In September the Seed Sovereignty Programme’s northern network held a Beanfeast. Communities would, traditionally, band together during harvest season for intense work as well as celebration: bringing in crops, saving seed and feasting on bounty. It is a time to, literally, enjoy the fruits of our labour. “Our recent Beanfeast event in the north of […]
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We’re pleased to share news of a vacancy within our thriving Seed Sovereignty Programme team, here in the UK. If you would like to become the next Southeast England Coordinator, read on to find out more! This role is for a Regional Coordinator to assist in the development of the second phase of the Seed […]
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Since visiting the Leakey home in May 2021, Northern England Coordinator Charlie has had the pleasure of speaking regularly with Tamsin about her father, Professor Colin Leakey and his beans. Tamsin and her mother welcomed Charlie to their home, where Professor Leakey lived his final years and where they have the remaining dwarf french beans […]
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Irish Coordinator Jason Horner tells the story of the origins, and his journey with saving seed from, the Land Leaguer potato… The Land Leaguer potato, sometimes called Hibernia, is a revered variety in County Clare where I have been living for the last 25 years. My introduction to it was early on in my time […]
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This week Wales Coordinator Katie Hastings walks us through the vital steps that come after all that lovely seed is grown, harvested, and processed. While actually selling the seed might seem like the easy bit, there’s a lot more than meets the eye… Our members are responsible for physically packing their seeds into packets […]
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If you’re at the stage of wanting to sell your seed, you’ll probably have your seed growing, harvesting, and processing down to a fine art right? Well, when doing these collectively there are a few things to look out for. Wales Coordinator Katie Hastings discusses… Actually growing the seed should be the easy bit, […]
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In this week’s instalment of ‘So You Want to Start a Seed Coop?’, our Wales Coordinator Katie Hastings talks us through the ins and outs of the Record-keeping and Legalities behind selling seed collectively… Selling seed can seem like a minefield of legislation, but this is not impenetrable. The first thing we did at […]
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The team of the Seed Sovereignty Programme UK and Ireland are supporting this No Patents on Seeds campaign and are encouraging all our seed saving networks, friends and supporters to sign this petition. Even though the UK is no longer in the European Union it is still under the jurisdiction of the European Patent office. […]
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The Seed Sovereignty Programme has been supporting the formation of a fledgling seed cooperative in Wales. Wales Coordinator Katie Hastings describes their journey so far. Seed breeds cooperation. We have been training Welsh growers in seed production for four years now, and they come to class wanting to share stories of the varieties they are […]
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