Seeds are the heart of a secure and resilient food system in the UK. Discover how the story of seed is shaping our future. 

We have lost 75% of genetic diversity in our crops over the past 100 years. Before this time, crops were grown and stewarded locally. Seeds were saved year on year, becoming increasingly adapted to the regions in which they grew. There were as many wheats as there were farms, as many beans as there were people to grow them.

We are all experiencing the very real effects of climate breakdown. Uncharacteristically cold, wet summers are followed by some of the hottest and driest summers on record in the UK and Ireland, and subsequent poor harvests have demonstrated how important it is for us to have resilient crops that can respond and adapt to these challenging conditions.

Putting our faith in the same profit-driven companies that stripped our fields of flourishing biodiverse life is not the answer. Seeds do not need to be genetically engineered in laboratories to have the traits necessary to withstand droughts, floods, and poor growing conditions. Every seed passed down by the hands, paws, and claws of those before us has a unique story of survival. In the miraculous variety of seeds saved, over millennia, is the memory of how to flourish, through sunshine and through storms.

A much higher diversity of food crops is needed for our communities to survive and thrive. And putting seed back in the hands of growers is how we can revive the lost diversity on these isles.