Seed Festival

Seed Festival

Celebrating Diversity…
November 9-11, 2017, at Organic World Congress

Bharat Beej Swaraj Manc​h (India Seed Sovereignty Alliance),
with Sahaja Samrudha and Save our Rice Campaign
⦁ to show-case, celebrate and conserve India’s rich diversity of agricultural seeds and bio-cultural heritage. About 55 Seed saver groups from 15 states of India –practicing on-farm conservation and promotion of seed diversity and related knowledge – will display over 4,000 different varieties of seeds, along with relevant posters and literature
⦁ to highlight community conservation traditions of participatory selection, innovation and shared rights over diversity of crop seeds and related knowledge
⦁ to inspire policy changes and initiatives towards community led in-situ conservation, regeneration, use and sharing of locally adapted crop diversity and related knowledge, protected from exclusionary/patented private property claims
⦁ to inspire consumer support for buying and consuming nutritionally superior traditional crops/varieties – to encourage farmers’ shift towards their cultivation

Seeds are the keystone of agriculture. Local farming communities have carefully preserved and replanted their diverse indigenous seed varieties over generations. It is from the dedicated practice of this art that our rich heritage of agricultural biodiversity has been maintained and developed.

While our farmers have traditionally been the conservators of our many thousands of seed varieties, the present agriculture system has led to high genetic erosion of crop diversity; and to the destruction of farmers’ knowledge, skills, and culture. Any sanctioning of multi-hazardous GM mono-cultural crops (or their field trials) would cause further severe genetic erosion and irreversible contamination of our surviving indigenous crop varieties.

For many farmers, their dependence on external inputs has greatly increased. But simultaneously, there have been sustained efforts among some sections of farmers to conserve and regenerate the rich diversity of traditional crops. These have resulted in genetic improvement and the conservation of indigenous knowledge and cultural practices, rooted in traditional organic mixed farming systems. There is urgent need to broaden the base of this culture of rediscovery and conservation.

The Seed Festival aims to uphold and strengthen seed sovereignty and the rights of the farmer. It is organized by Bharat Beej Swaraj Manch, along with Sahaja Samrudha and Save Our Rice Campaign as a parallel event during the Organic World Congress.