Around the world, seed diversity is threatened, and yet it is critical for ensuring a secure and resilient food system that serves both people and planet. At a time of climate crisis, there has never been greater urgency to protect and restore global seed diversity, in the hands of farmers, not corporations.
“Seed Sovereignty reclaims seeds and Biodiversity as commons and public good. The farmer’s rights to breed and exchange diverse Open Source Seeds which can be saved and which are not patented, genetically modified, owned or controlled by emerging seed giants”. Lexicon of Food
A friendly and committed team of Seed Sovereignty Programme Coordinators – based in South and North of England, in Scotland, Ireland and Wales – are working closely with small-scale market gardeners and seed producers, community groups and land workers to create the conditions for a diverse seed system to thrive. Meet the team further down this page.
Together with our partners we’re supporting diversity and knowledge revival by:
– Offering trainings to learn the skill of seed saving and to support commercial growers to diversify their businesses through small-scale agro-ecological seed production.
– Supporting community groups and growers dedicated to conserving diverse varieties of vegetable seed, oats or grains. Reviving the related knowledge associated with these varieties through research and intergenerational learning.
– Encouraging local seed initiatives and connecting up seed saving networks across Europe and around the world through peer to peer learning exchange.
– Educating the general public and influencing policy makers about the need for diverse, open-pollinated seed, where to buy them and how to support small-scale producers through fair legislation.
– Organising variety trials and participatory plant breeding for future resilience.
Through this dedicated programme website you can:
Sinéad supports the programme at a national and international level. This includes engaging with advisors on legislation, coordinating the overall framework of the programme, creating opportunities for engagement and education, and developing partnerships with key organisations. With a background in food security, community empowerment and social enterprise, Sinéad's previous work has been in community-based food production, sustainable food innovation and community funding.
Katie is coordinating the seed sovereignty programme in Wales. She is also co-founder of the community organisation Mach Maethlon where she coordinates a horticultural training programme, food hub and community growing scheme. She grows wheat as part of a collective, which is baked by a local bakery and eaten by people in Mid Wales. In her free time she grows field scale potatoes and salad for her local ‘solidarity veg box scheme’. Katie is a member of the Landworkers Alliance Cymru coordinating group. She is especially interested in rare oats.
Richie joined the team in June 2020 as the Lowlands Scotland Seed Sovereignty Coordinator and has just moved back home to Ireland. He has an academic background in amenity horticulture, market gardening and plant conservation. He works professionally in the field of horticultural therapy and is a keen amateur botanist specialising in the heather family native to Europe. He has a passion for community food growing. Over the last decade, he has set up and run community gardens in Dublin, Amsterdam and Glasgow. When not digging in a garden or wandering and botanising in the countryside, Richie can be found brewing his own beer, mead and hedgerow wines.
Catherine coordinates the seed network in the north of England supporting amateur and professional growers to grow more open pollinated seed for thriving, diverse and resilient food production. She is a co-director and founder of a ‘plot to plate’ community interest company in Teesside, runs the Middlesbrough Farmstart programme and has a background in helping people from diverse and challenged communities create gardens in urban spaces, particularly where these lead to new enterprises or work opportunities. Catherine is particularly interested in local and heritage varieties and celebrating the stories that sit behind them, and enjoys chatting to people at length about their growing adventures! When not actively engaged in mud, she enjoys making and crafting, which somehow always ends up back at seeds...
Randa coordinates the seed sovereignty programme in Southern England. They have worked for regenerative land projects for a few years in both commercial and herbal community settings in London. She started keeping seeds while growing vegetables at Wolves Lane Centre and later was the coordinator at The Seed Saving Network. In her MA she explored the way that growing food, tending the land and seeds is a practice for feeding a sense of home and belonging for people from a diasporic background. She sees seed sovereignty as a way to reclaim environmental and cultural practices and orient towards a just food system. They are interested in the way that cultural diversity engenders (agro)biodiversity and viceversa. Randa is also an artist exploring the ecological entanglement between plants, people and land facilitating workshops and creating moments of enchantment.
Holly is one of the coordinators for the South West of England, as well as a commercial veg and seed grower based at Trill Farm Garden in Devon. Prior to Trill, she worked at both Oxton Organics and spent time at East Neuk Market Garden in Fife. Horticulturally trained, she has a background in community growing working for grass roots organisations in Manchester, and most recently at RHS Garden Bridgewater. She is an aspiring seed grower and self-confessed soil biology nerd, particularly interested in bringing genetic diversity back to our food system through growing modern landraces.
The Gaia Foundation has been working at the nexus of climate, seed and knowledge for over three decades, both in the UK and overseas. Across Africa we support local and indigenous communities to revive their local seed diversity, by restoring confidence in their traditional knowledge and governance systems. In 2012 we released Seeds of Freedom, a documentary narrated by Jeremy Irons and exposing the true story of the corporate takeover of seed. In 2014 we hosted The Great Seed Festival on London's Southbank, where the idea for a UK wide seed programme was first conceived. A Feasibility Study reaching out to seed growing networks across the UK & Ireland was conducted in 2015 and the programme started in 2017.
