At Global Seed Savers we believe and have seen that our farmer partners are the backbone of their communities! Our partners are dedicated stewards of their lands, seeds, food traditions, and cultural practices, and they work hard daily to feed their families, communities, and indeed the world!

This is all while living with the first hand challenges and realities of: climate change, the influx of middlemen cutting them off from direct sales of their products and therefore less income generating opportunities, and limited access to being at the decision making table for policies that impact their daily lives. These challenges are real and ever present but we see on a daily basis how our farmer partners continue to rise above these challenges and build a better future.

Farmers are often faced with the lack of opportunity for higher income, and they have limited access to markets and farm services. Voices of farmers are rarely included in economic planning. Agricultural development is at the bottom of the government’s list, as reflected by the very small allotment (2% of the national budget) received by the sector.

The challenges farmers have had to face are no small feat. They have had to learn to deal with the almost-regular devastation of their farms due to typhoons. They have had to learn to recover from these devastations without the support of the government. They have had to shoulder increasing costs of food production in the face of consistently decreasing farm gate prices. 

Seeds from Tublay.

Seed sovereignty is defined as “the right of a farmer to save, use, exchange and sell his or her own seeds.”^[3]https://newearth.university/resources/what-is-seed-sovereignty-article/

Seed sovereignty is important for several reasons:^[4]https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/blogs/11658/how-to-guide-5-seed-sovereignty-and-saving/

• It is the basis to maintaining biodiversity as well as food security.
• High-quality open source seeds that can be easily produced at a low cost reduces the cost of purchasing seeds.
• It allows farmers to produce their own seeds (seed self-reliance)
• It allows for the free exchange and sale of seeds among farmers.
• It enables farmers to select seeds suited to their environment. If one wants fruits that are big and are not attacked by pests in the garden, they can choose seeds of the plants that are grown in their garden with these specific traits.
• It enables the preservation of valuable traditional or indigenous seed varieties of vegetables for future generations.

At Global Seed Savers, our goal is not just food security. Our goal is food sovereignty.^[7]https://changeforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Food-Security-vs-Food-Sovereignty.pdf

Conversations about development typically include food security, which is defined by the United Nations’ Committee on World Food Security as the capacity of people to “have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life”.^[8]https://www.ifpri.org/topic/food-security

Most national plans pertaining to food security are myopic because these do not distinguish where food comes from, or how they are produced. What matters for them is that populations have access to food.

Unfortunately, most national food security targets are often met by sourcing food which are produced through environmentally destructive and exploitative processes, and supported by  policies that destroy local food producers but benefit big, foreign agribusiness corporations.

Food Sovereignty: the right of peoples to healthy and culturally-appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.

According to estimates, 1-2% of crop diversity is lost every year, and this rate is accelerating as seed patenting and genetic engineering has prevented citizens from accessing, saving, and cultivating seeds they use for basic food production.^[9]https://ysnews.com/news/2022/02/community-biodiversity-through-seeds This is worsened by the fact that commercial farmers have limited seed choices as 50 to 60% of commercial seeds today are controlled by just four seed companies.

Did you know that 75% of the crops present during the early 1900s have already disappeared?^[10]https://en.reset.org/preventing-biodiversity-loss-through-seed-saving/ That is an enormous loss of genetic diversity. Plant varieties chosen for large-scale production by seed companies have pushed out varieties that were developed over many years based on flavor, resistance to pests, ability to withstand drought and other environmental stresses. Also, the various seed control mechanisms implemented by seed companies have led to the inability of commercial farmers to save seeds which in turn has prevented crops from adapting to their environments over generations of planting. This dependence on seed companies has diminished the biodiversity of the world’s food supply.

The beautiful Tublay landscape.

The growing of regionally-adapted seeds is parallel to that of supporting local food sources. It enables communities to reduce a community’s climate impacts while at the same time strengthening its food system in the face of growing climate uncertainty. 

When farmers cultivate, select, and save local seed varieties each year, they are essentially allowing crops to constantly evolve according to the conditions in which they are planted. For example, a plant that has survived drought would produce new generations of plants that would be drought-resilient. In the same way, plant varieties that survived floods would produce new generations that are flood-resistant. 

In the same way that we, humans, shape and design the future of plants, plants have shaped and designed our societies. Consider the story of corn.

The maize (or corn) we know today is a product of several generations of random genetic mutations of the crop which was made possible only by humans repeatedly propagating the plant. In the same way, corn holds a sacred meaning for many cultures because it has enabled their communities to survive in the toughest of situations.

In the Mayan tradition, corn is at the center of community life as it binds the peoples with a sense of cultural unity and sacredness. Many rituals and ceremonies have been developed by that culture to honor the corn and to ensure that its seeds continue to exist among their people.

Among us Filipinos, the plant with the greatest connection to our culture is probably rice. Is it a surprise then if we say that Indigenous Peoples in the country have developed their rituals surrounding rice? The Ifugaos, for example, have twelve rice rituals, which are performed by a native mumbaki. These rituals are performed throughout the rice growing cycle, which begins with the reopening of granaries, and ends with granaries being restocked with rice and seeds for the next planting season.^[11]http://www.heirloomrice.com/index.php?p=project&n=rituals Can you imagine such rice rituals to continue without the heirloom rice passed on from one generation to the next? 

For many farming communities, the practice of seed keeping is not just about local food production. It is an intimate part of preserving their culture and traditions. One may say that it is a bridge between the past and the future. 

Seeds are the foundation of our food system…We cannot separate culture and identity from the art, act, and love of growing food.

Seed Saving is an essential piece of this knowledge, and in order to build a resilient food system in these ever-changing times we have to return to this Indigenous wisdom.

 

Sherry Manning

US Executive Director, Global Seed Savers