Biodiversity

Animal Breed Ownership Concentration: Consumers are usually not told which breeds of chicken, cattle or swine have produced the eggs, milk and meat offered in the supermarkets or the butchery shops. They should get interested, since they are contributing to the development of a global genetic monoculture.
Banana Galore in the Solomon Islands: Banana galore short video clip on www.seedsavers.net Fresh from the oven!
Cities Feeding People - Seed Savers' Nineteenth Conference: Excellent 19th Conference held in Melbourne in March 2007
Indonesian Seed Saving Curbed: In Indonesia, small-scale corn farmers are being hauled before courts for exercising their traditional right to produce their own seeds. Some have ended up in jail, some have been fined and some have been prohibited from planting their own seed. Edited by Shelagh Pepper.
New Zealand's Seed Scene: An invitation to speak at the Eco-Show near Auckland, New Zealand provided the opportunity to meet with members of the sixteen Seed Savers organisations in that country.
Rare Bananas in Makira: Collecting Banana Diversity in an Outer Island of The Pacific
Report from former intern, James Sprunt in India: James trained at the Seed Centre as an intern in August 2003 for three weeks and went on soon afterwards to work in one of our sister organisations, the GREEN Foundation in India.
Seed Savers in Taiwan: Civil societies strong interest in traditional seed conservation
Seed Savers' Film Clip on the Web: Do you believe that traditional varieties deliver more nutrition, are suited to organic growing and are culturally significant? Then you will want to see our new four minute film clip, "Guardians of the Seed", that celebrates the yummy things in life.
Seed Vault Services Big Agriculture : The Norwegian Government has built the first global seed vault underground in their high Arctic region near Svalbard. Let’s say we were underwhelmed. Its inauguration late February was widely reported and captured the public's imagination receiving praise from the scientific community around the world. We here at Seed Savers received alerts every day from friends and strangers. However we were far from overjoyed. What a waste of money and effort.
Watching the earth from shuttle Discovery: Shuttle Commander Eileen Collins Sees Wide Environmental Damage

Event

Hosting Next Seed Savers Conference: After the success of our recent twentieth conference in Gulgong near Mudgee we are looking for a host for next year's conference. It would be great if a local seed network in Western Australia, Tasmania or Northern Territory would take up this opportunity to promote seed saving as we have not had conferences in those states before. It has been twelve years since we had one in Qld.
Our 20th Annual Conference was held in Gulgong: For the first time in its twenty two year history the Annual Seed Savers Conference was held in the Central West of NSWat the Gulgong Showground 29th to 30th March 2008.
Taro Diversity Fair: 843 varieties of taro have been collected by The Planting Material Network in The Solomon Islands over the last year with funding from the EU and the South Pacific Commission's Taro-gen Project.
The First Melanesian Farmers' Seed Saving Conference: The First Melanesian Farmers' Seed Saving Conference was held in June 2003 at Choiseul Bay, the most westerly point of The Solomon Islands. Seed Savers helped to organise the attendance of several representatives of sustainable agriculture groups in Melanesian countries.

GMO Issues

Monsanto Seed Giant: Corporate seed experts discover heirlooms off the beaten path...

Organisational

Coordinating Local Seed Networks: Local Seed Network Courses
News from Local Seed Networks around Australia: There are more than sixty local seed networks in Australia, organising the exchange of seeds between local gardeners and spreading seed saving skills.

School Seed Activities

Interns work with Aborigines: Two young women who have trained at The Seed Centre have been working in schools in the Northern Territory, Australia, with aborigines.
New Book on School Food Gardens Published: Want to establish a food garden in a school? Here is the book for you.
School Food Gardens Book: We have had a good response to our “Seed to Seed Food Gardens in Schools” book published last August. Three hundred copies have been distributed and sold and many more have been downloaded for free from our website, www.seedsavers.net
Seed Activities in Micronesian Schools: Seed saving taught in a high school in Pohnpei in February 2001. Report by Frank Frost (retired policeman and long time seed saver)

Seed Aid

Iraq Alert: Seeds are becoming big transnational business in Iraq
Seed Intern in East Timor: Things related to seeds have been popping up here of late. Report from Amy Glastonbury in Dili, East Timor

Seed Training

Andean Seed Matters: Notes from the highlands
Michel on speaking tour of Japan: In July Seed Savers' co-founder, Michel Fanton, went to Japan to speak to consumer and farmers' groups about conservation of food plant varieties.
Preserving Crop Diversity in Afghanistan: Seed Savers has given help in the western city of Herat through a Japanese aid agency. Projects include a tree nursery, courtyard gardens in the poorer suburbs, support for the agriculture department of the university, design for irrigation channels and a plan to preserve traditional crops.
Promoting Local Seed Systems in East Timor: Michel and Jude Fanton tell of raising awareness of the current level of seed diversity in East Timor and dispel myths about the benefits of imported seeds over locally adapted seeds.
Seed Saving Tour of India: Jude Fanton went to India for three and a half weeks to give a workshop for GREEN Foundation in Bangalore and to visit other projects that do similar work to Seed Savers' Network.
Seed Saving in Cuba: Report on The Havana Seed Savers Network (La Red de Semillas) from Pam Morgan
Seed work in the Philippines: Seed Savers participation in a National Seed Congress on Local Seed Systems for Genetic Conservation and Sustainable Agriculture.

Social Justice

An African Call for Moratorium on Biofuels: Biofuels are touted as the solution to dwindling supplies of oil, but what about the cost to agriculture and the environment? Gathuru Mburu, Co-ordinator, African Biodiversity Network, writes.
Farmers’ Rice Varieties Flogged, Hybridised: Rice farmers routinely save their own seeds. Massive collections have been made from their selections over the last few decades to be held in trust for public breeding programmes. Now these varieties are being sold off to create hybrid rice, a new phenomenon, that precludes seed saving.

Sustainable Agriculture

Highland farmers of PNG to keep traditional crops: When Seedsavers Australia travels to traditional/tribal farmers it is never with the intention of teaching them better ways to feed themselves or to save seeds.