When we talk about sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty, we find the issue of seeds. The use, conservation, recovery and dissemination of local varieties is becoming increasingly important. With the Haziera project, the Cristina Enea Foundation of Donostia-San Sebastián launched a file of seed varieties in 2013, and currently have 80 seeds.

Take and give seeds

The main purpose of the seed is not to recover the old seed varieties, as Marc Badal, a member of the project, says: “People who have small orchards or have little experience come to Hazierra. Training, awareness-raising and outreach are our main objectives.” In fact, in the conservation and recovery of the seeds work mainly the Seed Network, to which they target more experienced people (Seed Network of Navarra or Seed Network of the Basque Country).The operation is as follows: anyone can access the Haziera file and collect the seeds there, free of charge.
These ‘caretakers’ will try to sow seeds, grow plants and replant them. If everything goes well, some of the achievements will be kept for themselves and others will be returned to the file.

Need to recover seed control

Badal stresses that local seed varieties are particularly interesting for organic farming: “Being genetically very heterogeneous, it’s easier to survive some problems, without the need for greenhouses or chemicals.” Historically, the seeds have been kept by the farmers themselves (especially by peasant women), exchanging with the neighbors or in the local markets... They
were always local networks. Multinationals such as Monsanto are a new issue, a few decades ago. And in a short time, they've been done with the greatest control of the world's seeds. But there are those who are gradually confronted and are working to reclaim the rich legacy left by the traditional rural world, such as the Seed Networks or the Aging itself. As Badal said, “seeds have, in addition to economic and productive power, a very strong symbolic power”.