Battlers for Biodiversity - By Belinda Meares

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BATTLERS FOR BIO-DIVERSITY
Belinda Meares, Byron Bay
February 2004

Jude and Michel Fanton of Byron Bay, northern New South Wales, have for the past 20 years been radical exponents of social change, in a most practical sense. Their cause? To preserve the diversity of useful plant varieties and promote awareness of the unsustainability of our globalised food industry, (not excluding large-scale organic agriculture).

The Fantons are the founders of the Seed Savers’ Network (website: www.seedsavers.net email: info@seedsavers.net ), a pioneering non-profit organisation that has spawned over 50 local groups throughout Australia and has supported projects in over 20 countries aimed at reviving traditional cultivation methods.

“Our message is simple,” says Jude, “but there are not enough people saying it. It’s also timely because with GE, people have begun to think about the genetic make-up of their food.” However, she reminds us, the hybridisation and selective breeding of seeds for “one-type-fits-all” use has been going on for decades, progressively diminishing the diversity, quality and robustness of our food supplies.

“We see the most basic human right as food security,” adds French-born Michel. “Our job is to help grower communities replace the uniform varieties of everything with plants adapted to local conditions, that can fight disease better and provide diverse characteristics, including better flavour and nutritional value.”

The network’s operations are based on the Fantons' one-acre property, which is handily located on the outskirts of town. Into their rambling family home are squeezed the seed bank, 1700-volume library, administrative facilities including computerised database and image bank, and accommodation for visiting volunteers and students. Finally, after years of planning, enough funds are available for the construction of a specialised, eco-friendly Seed and Food Education Centre on the site.

Presently, most of the land is occupied by edible plant life, interspersed with signs giving plant origins and their usage. A fascinating microcosm of the huge variety of open-pollinated species that have nourished and healed populations for millennia, the gardens are organised in two sections, one for the densely integrated beds of vegetables, herbs and flowers, and the other dedicated to larger food plants from different continents: - Australia, Central and South America, South, East and Central Asia, the Mediterranean, and the South Pacific. Here, rare and unusual plants such as kenchur ginger from Bali and a dozen edible bamboos flourish alongside staples like taro, lima beans, and olive trees.

The seed bank is an invaluable repository that has been built up by the Fantons’ own efforts, and by donations from subscribers who now number around 1500. Up to 7000 samples have been collected and are distributed freely on request, but these days members are encouraged first to approach their Local Seed Network (LSN), or, where none exists, to set one up.

Over the past two years, Jude and Michel have been decentralising the network, to promote regional self reliance and to free up more of their time for education, training and research. An LSN can start simply within a family or whanau, or it can be formed by a garden club, community garden, permaculture or biodynamic group, or even begin as a school project. (The Seed Savers’ Network actively supports schools).

As well as swapping seeds and planting material among members, the LSNs’ role is to become active in their communities. They set up information stands at markets and other events, provide speakers to schools and organisations, write articles or talk on radio, and lobby local councils and politicians. The groups are also encouraged to do a “skills audit” of gardeners and food preservers, paying special attention to older folk with a wealth of valuable knowledge.

The Seed Centre provides comprehensive back-up for all these activities. As well access to on-site resources and workshops, this support includes the “how to” LSN Manual, interactive website, newsletters, expert speakers, and the hosting of the annual Seed Savers’ Conference each October.

Combining the practical with the political, education is uppermost on the Fantons’ agenda. Jude, an ex-schoolteacher brought up in a socialist family, and Michel, son of a French resistance fighter, are passionate about passing on their knowledge and motivating people to act on it.

It is a matter not only of self-reliance, but of self-preservation, says Michel. “Citizens have lost the skill of saving seeds,” he warns. “It is all very well to complain and protest about GE or corporations, there is a place for that, but we have to learn to do the job ourselves. That is why we have come up with this peaceful, solution-based idea of Local Seed Networks. So that, if we have to, we can return to small-scale, local food production because our communities have conserved seeds and know about the multi-usage of plants.”

The centre’s educational programme is extensive, encompassing one-day public garden tours, week-long courses in food growing and seed saving, and long-term student internships for volunteers going overseas. Also offered is specialist training for Local Seed Networks.

The Seed Savers’ story began in the 1970’s when, as “alternative lifestylers” with resilience and imagination, the Fantons met on an 1800-acre communal property in northern NSW. There they gardened in wet rainforest conditions and raised three children with virtually no amenities. To conquer mildew problems, they tried varieties of locally grown vegetables and were inspired by the results to share their seeds, and convictions, with other gardeners. By 1986, they had established the Seed Savers’ Network. Within a short time it had outgrown the couple’s bedroom in the backblocks, so they moved to Byron Bay, a small but vibrant hub an hour’s drive south of the Gold Coast.

Today, the growing momentum of the community food movement, which the Fantons have helped inspire, should assure the future of the Seed Savers’ Network. In addition to its founders, the network employs two part-time staff aided by many volunteer helpers. Funds are always stretched, however the Fantons’ international work has attracted regular grants from two donor organisations. Another ongoing source of revenue is the sale of the Seed Savers’ Handbook, a unique resource compiled and produced for Australia and New Zealand. (To date 23,000 copies have been sold and versions published in several foreign languages, including Basque and Japanese). Subscriptions, donations and fees for courses and consultancy work make up the remainder of the budget. It’s a shoestring operation, but the Fantons have never been tempted to run a commercial enterprise. Started as a non-profit trust, the Seed Savers’ Foundation is now a registered charitable entity.


Sidebar – Saving Livelihoods in the Third World

The issue of food security is acute in most countries of the Third World, as the Fantons have experienced first-hand. They travel overseas several times a year, to countries such as the Solomon Islands, Cuba, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, India, East Timor, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia and Japan.

“We usually only go at the request of local groups,” Michel emphasises, “or, if we go through an aid agency, we make sure we are really welcome.”

Interestingly, he observes, the communities most responsive to the Seed Savers’ presence are those that the so-called Green Revolution has bypassed. No matter where they go, the Fantons take pains to assure local farmers that their traditions are more “progressive” than the high-input, chemical-dependent agriculture promoted by Western corporations and donor agencies.

In Afghanistan in 2002 for a Japanese-sponsored project, Jude and Michel met with an avid welcome from students who had been isolated from the rest of the world for 25 years. Hosted by the Herat University of Agriculture, the project involved training farmers to collect traditional varieties of food trees, multiply them and redistribute them to communities. For their part, the Fantons admired the sophistication of traditional Afghani agriculture that enables farmers to produce food in extraordinarily harsh conditions.

A highly successful project is the establishment of the Planting Material Network (PMN) in the Solomon Islands, which has blossomed into a Melanesian-wide movement. Last year, the first Melanesian Farmers’ Seed Saving Conference was held in Choiseul Bay, attracting over 20 overseas participants and 120 farmers from every province of the Solomons.

The PMN, aided by funds adminstered through Seed Savers, has identified over 100 local varieties of taro, and 80 varieties of bananas. Following the violent land disputes in the Solomons two years ago, when migrants to Guadalcanal from the overcrowded island of Malaita were forced to return home, the network reproduced material provided by members for the displaced Malaitans to establish new gardens.

Also rewarding is the outcome of several years of field work in Ecuador, carried out by five Seed Centre interns, which culminated in the launch of the Ecuadorian Seed Guardians last May. Michel attended the occasion and ran workshops. While he found that Andean subsistence farmers are still saving a large diversity of their crop seeds, (they possess hundreds of bean varieties alone), this independence is threatened by the combined onslaught from seed companies and aligned aid agencies. To make matters worse, he reports, the government is considering legislating against farmers’ rights to sell and exchange seeds. Another threat to the integrity of traditional farming is the high-pesticide use on export crops such as flowers, bananas, coffee and palm oil. However, there is a groundswell of resistance to this trend by local groups, who ensured that debates sparked by Michel’s tour, which included a conference held at the Department of Agriculture, were widely reported in the media.

Behind the scenes, the Seed Savers’ international influence encompasses lobbying UN agencies on the importance of conserving genetic bio-diversity, advising aid agencies on the choice of seeds dispensed for relief, and lobbying governments on gene technology and intellectual property rights.

Sidebar – Seed banking for the Future

Storing and keeping track of seeds coming into the Seed Centre is a meticulous job. The seeds are sealed in notated packets, with a code number so that varieties can be monitored through generations and individual growers. The packets are then placed in airtight buckets for long-term storage. Each packet contains a small sachet of silica gel for absorbing excess moisture, and is checked every three months.

Another task is to “vigour” test all seeds received by planting a sample in open-air soil, according to the optimum growing months for the species. Germination dates and viability percentages are recorded.

About a quarter of the seeds in the bank are produced by the Seed Centre itself, so there is plenty of work for volunteers who do a weekly seed clean. This is done with flat winnowing baskets, shaken and tossed over a tarpaulin for retrieving any seeds that stray off in the wind. Recently, a gift of a seed-cleaning machine with adjustable wind speeds has helped make the job quicker and less wasteful.

Donors are urged to provide the “story” of the seeds they send in, including the origins and history of use, and information on cultivation and conservation.