Helping Nature Heal Inc.

Ecological Restoration and Living Shorelines

Seed Freedom

Today, Helping Nature Heal joins the 2012 Global Citizens’ Alliance for Seed Freedom. The organization Navdanya is founded by Dr. Vandana Shiva, who came to Nova Scotia earlier this year. Vandana Shiva fights for Earth Democracy– a combination of nature and human rights. Seed freedom is at the heart of her work because seed patenting devastates biodiversity and food security.

Seed saving is high priority at HNH. It helps us become more sustainable, because it advances us on the path of self-sufficiency and ensures the longevity of the hardy native and heirloom species we use in our plantings. Our staff learns how to save seeds and we have an agreement with many of our clients that allows us to save seeds from their properties. Our biggest contribution to seed freedom may be the Seedy Saturday event that we have organized for the last 6 years. In 2012 we had over a hundred participants. That’s a lot of networking and knowledge-sharing!

If you are interested in learning more about seed saving, we have copies of How to Save Your Own Seeds: A Handbook for Home Seed Production (Seeds of Diversity Canada) in our Nature’s Store. If you are interested in a class on seed saving, why not let our workshop leaders know?

For now, here is Navdanya’s declaration and call to action. I can’t think of an issue that is more important in our world today. Put it on your fridge, talk to your friends and family, join the movement; this is the year to come together globally to protect the source of life and freedom.

Declaration on Seed Freedom

1. Seed is the source of life, it is the self urge of life to express itself, to renew itself, to multiply, to evolve in perpetuity in freedom.
2. Seed is the embodiment of bio cultural diversity. It contains millions of years of biological and cultural evolution of the past, and the potential of millennia of a future unfolding.
3. Seed Freedom is the birth right of every form of life and is the basis for the protection of biodiversity.
4. Seed Freedom is the birth right of every farmer and food producer. Farmers rights to save, exchange, evolve, breed, sell seed is at the heart of Seed Freedom. When this freedom is taken away farmers get trapped in debt and in extreme cases commit suicide.
5. Seed Freedom is the basis of Food Freedom, since seed is the first link in the food chain.
6. Seed Freedom is threatened by patents on seed, which create seed monopolies and make it illegal for farmers to save and exchange seed. Patents on seed are ethically and ecologically unjustified because patents are exclusive rights granted for an invention. Seed is not an invention. Life is not an invention.
7. Seed Freedom of diverse cultures is threatened by Biopiracy and the patenting of indigenous knowledge and biodiversity. Biopiracy is not innovation – it is theft.
8. Seed Freedom is threatened by genetically engineered seeds, which are contaminating our farms, thus closing the option for GMO-free food for all. Seed Freedom of farmers is threatened when after contaminating our crops, corporations sue farmer for “stealing their property”.
9. Seed Freedom is threatened by the deliberate transformation of the seed from a renewable self generative resource to a non renewable patented commodity. The most extreme case of non renewable seed is the “Terminator Technology” developed with aim to create sterile seed.
10.We commit ourselves to defending seed freedom as the freedom of diverse species to evolve; as the freedom of human communities to reclaim open source seed as a commons.
To this end, we will save seed.
We will create community seed banks and seed libraries.
We will not recognize any law that illegitimately makes seed the private property of corporations.
We will stop the patents on seed.
Seed is the source of life and the first link in the food chain. Control over seed means a control over our lives, our food and our freedom.
Corporations like Monsanto have created a seed emergency – an emergency through patents on seeds, seed monopolies, biopiracy, genetic engineering and creation of non -renewable sterile seeds. Seed monopolies have pushed 250,000 farmers to commit suicide in India. After contaminating farmer’s seeds and crops, Monsanto sues farmers “for stealing their gene”, putting the polluter pays principle on its head, and making it the polluter gets paid principle.
The multidimensional emergency created by patents on seeds and GMOs needs a global collective response.
Collectively, we must stop the patenting of seeds. Join the Global movement on Seed Freedom to stop the corporate hijack of seed and with it, the hijack of our freedom and our future.

To get involved, contact:
Global Movement to Defend Seed Freedom

info@seedfreedom.in

www.seedfreedom.in / www.navdanya.org