UK imported £39.5 billion of food between March ’21 and February ’22
Food price inflation has left many people choosing between heating their homes or buying food.
We are frequently told there is a food shortage, and that climate change will mean we must adapt to new ways of living and eating, and that the only way for this to be solved is by using gm seeds and other new technologies.
CRISPR and other new techniques such as “gene edited (GE) organisms are a million miles from traditional breeding methods. This direct manipulation may pose a serious threat to the health of people and the wider food chain The majority of seeds we see in a garden store today haven’t learned to adapt to their environment, and will most likely need pesticides to grow.
Food security and resilience is about Cultivating regionally adapted seeds, thereby enabling seeds to learn to thrive in their current soil and ecosystem, and storing that information within new generations of seeds If the powers that be are really concerned about climate change then they would understand that seeds hold memory of past seasons, heavy rainfall, or drought, just like tree display these records in their tree rings.
Saving seeds is going to be a lot of trial and error But we must start as we mean to go on. Some seeds will thrive others wont, and its matter of saving the ones that do and selecting to best plants. This process begins by choosing organic open pollinated and heirloom seeds from seed conscious suppliers such as Real seeds for example.
In indigenous cultures they believe that it takes seven growing seasons for a locally adapted generational seed to develop.
I have a lot of respect for the indigenous wisdom of rematriation that means returning the the seed or plant to its lands of origin. I think its time the uk returned seed saving to its local communities once again.
The save seed exchange is a channel for people starting hubs in the UK that can be anything from PHA hubs, local environmental hubs, stand in the park, gathering people together who want to start growing food, herbs, medicine using organic, open pollinated and heirloom seeds. The idea is to form seed saving circles within each town and village in the UK, the telegram save seed exchange channel will be for groups to post their seedy sunday events for seed exchange, and hold space to discuss seed saving generally or food growing, its exciting times, many don’t have access to land as yet, others are still learning about saving seeds, many are booked up to do no dig courses, we also have some great teachers on telegram including Dario from t.me/livingsoilgardening who frequently posts about how to encourage good soil management.
As Vandana Shiva says “who controls the seed, controls life on earth” it’s time for the UK to reclaim seed freedom and food sovereignty for their own communities.
