Seedy Sunday in Oxford
Hamish Campbell | 24.03.2005 23:13 | Ecology | Education | Health | Oxford
Seedy Sunday resently happend at the new Action Resoure center in the East Oxford Communerty Center. The idea was originally imported from Vancouver Island, Canada where Sharon Rempel of Saltspring Seeds started the idea of a Seedy Saturday. But of course, seed swapping is nothing new and there are many good reasons why people have been doing it for centuries all over the world.
A particular benefit of a local seed swap is that most of the seeds being swapped will be adapted to local conditions and will therefore be able to grow well. Further to this, the process of seed-swapping leading to the building up of local varieties of crops plays a vital role in the wider picture of preserving biodiversity.
An untold number of crop varieties have become extinct since the onset of industrial agriculture in the last 50 or so years and the only way to reverse this trend is for the existing heritage varieties to be spread and grown as widely as possible. As well as being important in order to preserve the diversity of nature, swapping seeds also plays a crucial role in reclaiming control over the food chain from large seed companies. Profit in the seed business relies on customers coming back year after year, which has led to the development of various hybrid seeds specifically designed to become sterile after one season to serve the business interests of seed companies.
This commercial attitude towards seed has shown itself to be fundamentally unsustainable and is totally contradictory to the spirit of seed-swapping which regards the cycle of life from seed to plant to seed as a precious gift of nature, to be shared with everyone. Seedy Sunday also hopes to promote social diversity so that people of all ages and backgrounds can come together to discuss their crops and much more, enabling connections to be made between growers in the local community so that people can work together on ensuring their own food security.
Text taken from
http://www.seedysunday.org
An untold number of crop varieties have become extinct since the onset of industrial agriculture in the last 50 or so years and the only way to reverse this trend is for the existing heritage varieties to be spread and grown as widely as possible. As well as being important in order to preserve the diversity of nature, swapping seeds also plays a crucial role in reclaiming control over the food chain from large seed companies. Profit in the seed business relies on customers coming back year after year, which has led to the development of various hybrid seeds specifically designed to become sterile after one season to serve the business interests of seed companies.
This commercial attitude towards seed has shown itself to be fundamentally unsustainable and is totally contradictory to the spirit of seed-swapping which regards the cycle of life from seed to plant to seed as a precious gift of nature, to be shared with everyone. Seedy Sunday also hopes to promote social diversity so that people of all ages and backgrounds can come together to discuss their crops and much more, enabling connections to be made between growers in the local community so that people can work together on ensuring their own food security.
Text taken from
http://www.seedysunday.org
Hamish Campbell
e-mail:
hamish@undercurrents.org
Homepage:
http://www.undercurrents.org
Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
seedysunday video
26.03.2005 14:30
you folx iz fantastic an inspirin an soopa!!!
thankyou!!!!!!!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!!!!!!!
pixie steve
thanks for posting that...
28.03.2005 03:22
thanks alot for posting that. i`m neil from the seedy sunday group in Brighton - i wrote the piece of text you used from the website. great to hear about the swap in Oxford, it seems the idea is spreading around quite a few places now, North Devon, Machynlleth, Dulwich...
Which was the intention of some stalls we did at some festivals last year promoting the idea - just out of personal interest i would be grateful if you might be able to give some idea of how the idea made its way to Oxford and got started there...
many best wishes
neil
neil
e-mail:
neil@dissolvingpath.com
Homepage:
http://www.dissolvingpath.com
Oxford Seedy Sunday video
01.04.2005 15:08
Is there a way to save it, rather than have to view it on-line?
I hope it will at some time in the near future be available on CD, longer and higher quality.
I also suggest it is shown at this year's Beyond TV film festival. Maybe a Seedy Sunday stall there too!
Seed swaps don't just preserve and enhance local genetic diversity. They can also help to spread and safeguard that diversity worldwide.
We have recently been spreading that diversity worldwide, seeds exported and imported.
No particular location is safe with its genetic inheritance.
The seed banks in Iraq were destroyed. The Yanks, with foreign seed imports, are doing their best to destroy what little diversity is left.
Maize diversity in Mexico is no longer safe due to genetic pollution by mutant GM strains.
'.. great to hear about the swap in Oxford, it seems the idea is spreading around quite a few places now, North Devon, Machynlleth, Dulwich ... Which was the intention of some stalls we did at some festivals last year promoting the idea - just out of personal interest i would be grateful if you might be able to give some idea of how the idea made its way to Oxford and got started there...'
Had a large impact!
I've been meaning to write on this for the last few weeks. Thanks for the reminder. More soon ....
..... but in the meantime
Keith Parkins, Sowing Seeds of Dissent, Indymedia UK, 6 September 2004
Keith Parkins, Seeds of Dissent, September 2004
Keith Parkins, Seedy Sunday Brighton 2005, Indymedia UK, 8 February 2005
keith
Hi! I've got loads of mixed pumkin and squash seeds!!!
20.03.2006 02:56
email contact address to:
Bright Blessings
King Amdo