Seeds

Carles responded to our note about the Irish Seed Savers Association with two new sites, based in Catalonia, Spain. They’re in now.

It seems that in addition to railing against the loss of backgarden and small farmer biodiversity, especially in Europe, we could attempt to perform a minor service to the community by assembling a list of links to people and organizations that promote more agrobiodiversity. I don’t vouch for any of these. Nor do I pretend that the list is exclusive, but that I can remedy: send me your suggestions. This list from FAO does have pretensions of completeness, but I don’t know how frequently it is updated (or if it is at all).

• Esporus, Centre de conservació de la biodiversitat Cultivada, in Spain.
• Les Refardes, in Spain.
• Native Seeds/SEARCH, in the US southwest, straddling the seeds and cultures of the Sonoran desert.
• Southern Seed Legacy, based in Georgia, in the US.
• The Garden of Eden, a Belgian version
• Seeds of Diversity Canada’s Heritage Seed Program
• The Seed Ambassadors Project in Oregon
• The Heritage Seed Library of Garden Organic in the UK
• Arche Noah in Austria
• Pro Specie Rara in Switzerland (with branches elsewhere)
• Hof van Eden in the Netherlands, one of the oldest and biggest in Europe.
• Sesam in Sweden
• Frøsamlerne in Denmark
• The Irish Seed Savers Association
• Semilla Besada, “for sustainable land stewardship in brittle landscapes.”
• Seed Savers Network in Australia
• Seed Savers Exchange in the United States
• SAVE Foundation an umbrella organization for Europe, with loads of links
• Fruit-net specializing in, er, fruit in Europe.
• Trees of Antiquity sells many varieties of fruit in the US.
• Association Kokopelli in France
• Brown Envelope Seeds, in Ireland, “To enable people to grow their own food”.
• Frijns and Sons is a nursery in SE Netherlands with a large collection of local apples.
• Stichting De Nationale Proeftuin is a non-commerical market in Holland (Thanks Maria).
• Fork and Bottle, a “guide to eating, drinking and living”, has a page of seed sources that offers personal experiences and recommendations from two dedicated growers in the USA.
• Bifurcated Carrots, a blog based in the Netherlands, has a seed exchange page.
• And finally, Seedsaving and Seedsavers’ Resources is a page full of interesting links to all sorts of things. I haven’t checked them, so please don’t blame me if any are broken.

Like I said, I know there are others, so send me details and we’ll put them up here. Agricultural biodiversity matters to us all, not only to people in developing countries. It would be cool to link up to seed exchanges and individuals all over the world, but we need your help.