The Light Paper

Forwarded from Hope108

Since the lockdown, we've been bombarded daily with headlines telling us a food shortage is imminent & that climate change will mean we must adapt to new ways of living & eating. Seemingly these new ways appear to involve the use of GM seeds & new technologies such as CRISPR & techniques such as "gene edited (GE) organisms ..all this seems far removed from traditional breeding methods.

Food security & resilience is about cultivating diversity & having everyone take part in seed saving/growing food /plant medicine locally.
Of course there's going to be a lot of trial and error. But we must start as we mean to go on. Some seeds will thrive others wont, & its matter of saving the ones that do & selecting the best plants.

This process begins by purchasing organic open pollinated/ heirloom seeds from seed conscious suppliers such as Realseeds for example. Enrolling on a seed saving online course, or ordering a good seed saving book such as Sue Stickland's 'Back garden Seed Saving.'

#saveseedexchange UK is a telegram group for people looking to set up local seed saving group within their region
We post seed exchange events.

The saveseedexchange is to post an Offer/Wanted in the group and arrange to meet at their local Hub or Library .
A Hub can be anything from PHA Hub, or Local Environmental Hub.

The #saveseedexchange UK telegram group has 4 regional online groups set up so far..
T.me/saveseedexchangelondon
T.me/saveseedexchangesurrey
T.me/saveseedexchangesuffolk
T.me/saveseedexchangeberkshire
The groups are for people to post Offer / Acceptance -

*Its strictly a non GM seed / fungicide treated, or grown with chemicals, or non-organic fertilisers is not accepted for exchange here. Neither are F1 not be true to type.

EXCHANGE
Make sure to use #hashtags for location/seed type
1 #location town, village, county, region within uk
2 #seedsoffered — common name/Variety
3 Growing conditions used organic, allotment, garden ,8 biodynamic etc)
4 #seedswanted —
Growing conditions wanted —
5.say where your closest Hub/Library to exchange and meet.

*please do Seed viability test prior to packing seeds for Exchange .

*SeedLabel - Common name/Variety/location grown/growing conditions/info/story about crop

Storage- fully dried seeds best kept in cold dark place.
Sealed envelope packets kept in drawer has life of 3 years..

Longer lifetimes achieved by placing fully dried seeds in envelopes then in a air tight container,such as glass jar with screw lid . Silica gel crystal placed in jars will detect moisture by changing colour.and keep in a cool dark space.

Further still, Sealed jars kept in a fridge at about 4 degrees will have a lifetime of 7 years..possibly longer.

Ideally seeds need to be shared/exchanged and planted frequently they are not meant to be collected on a shelf..gathering dust.

The Exchange must remain FREE OF CHARGE ! This is important.

Seed sovereignty is the right to own, sow, breed, and save. Seeds are the common property of the community.

Seeds are essentially the new currency !

Some don’t have access to land as yet, others are still learning about saving seeds, we post a few ideas on T.me/savetheseeds

Post your seedy saturday/sunday Event at t.me/Saveseedexchange

London SaveSeedExchange

London - Swap your highest quality saved heirloom organic open pollinated seeds at your local HUB (london) Food sovereignty is seed sovereignty. T.me/saveseedexchange

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