Guardians Of Diversity: Slow Food Highlights Seed Saving Stories For World Biodiversity Day

World Biodiversity Day 2025 falls this year just weeks after the release of FAOs “Third Report on the State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture”, 15 years after the second report, which aims to monitor and map the health of agricultural biodiversity.

According to FAO, genetic diversity is key to creating more resilient agrifood systems that withstand challenges such as shifting climate patterns. Since 80 percent of the food we consume is plant-based, preserving a wide range of genetic materials allows farmers to grow crops and varieties suited to their local environments, enhancing food security and livelihoods.

As the world faces widespread hunger, malnutrition, and poverty, exacerbated by biodiversity loss, climate crisis, land degradation, and conflicts, there is an urgent need to halt the loss of the genetic resources that support agrifood systems. Although the number of materials stored ex-situ (in bank refrigerators) seems reassuring, in reality, it emerges that about 20 percent of collected seeds should be regenerated to ensure germinability , and that, too often, information on those stored is lacking. In addition, traditional knowledge related to seeds is almost never documented.

“Dedicated policies for agricultural diversity in the fields are absent in many countries or do not adequately involve all stakeholders. In all 128 countries that contributed to the FAO report, instead, the presence of informal seed systems emerged, consisting of farmers and local communities that play a central role in the conservation of agricultural biodiversity and in defending farmers’ rights. We need a legal framework that can sustain and grow agroecology, which offers a pathway for a transition towards sustainable food systems. We also seek support from institutions at all levels, to counter the serious risk to global food security” says Edward Mukiibi, president of Slow Food who calls himself a “seed farmer”. “Industrial production systems in fact destroy agricultural biodiversity because, by limiting plant diversity to a small number, they make ecosystems more vulnerable, putting our food and future at risk. They also require an intensive use of chemicals that pollute the environment and cause a loss of resilience of agricultural systems. We can nourish people if we support them to farm their local products”.

The network of Slow Food activists around the world is resisting the loss of agricultural biodiversity by saving, exchanging, and cultivating traditional seeds. We report only a few testimonies of women, farmers, and activists who have made this battle an important part of their lives.

Leidy Casimiro, Slow Food International Councillor for Latin America and the Caribbean, Cuba: “The Slow Food group in Cuba has implemented several strategic actions to safeguard seeds, based on a deep agroecological approach and developed experiences. Among these, the Slow Food Farms are more than 90% independent in the procurement and conservation of resilient seeds adapted to their environmental and sociocultural conditions. They participate in seed exchanges between farmers and communities in the country. Many of these seeds are delivered to community nurseries for seedling reproduction and efficient distribution. We also implement international collaboration projects that promote the creation of agrobiodiversity networks and fairs. We involve women in food conservation and seed production: the active participation of these women and their families in the selection, experimentation, multiplication and conservation of seeds constitutes a viable alternative for increasing yields on the basis of greater varietal diversification. We have catalogued 52 products in Cuba's Ark of Taste, the world's largest catalog of cultural and traditional biodiversity related to food and agriculture created by Slow Food, and identified new products that should be safeguarded, such as, among others, purple malanga, honey from the melipona bee, creole pork, cassava, and agroecological potato.”

Melissa de Billot, Slow Food International Councilor for Biodiversity, South Africa: “. As a backyard suburban farmer, I had been growing my own food for many years and learning how to save my own seeds. Since working on the Ark of Taste, the world's largest catalogue of endangered foods, I began collecting rare and endangered South African traditional seeds, such as Rainbow Maize (now a Slow Food Presidium, i.e. a Slow Food project that bring producers together and help them carry on their invaluable work thanks to technical support, promotional activities and exchanges with experts). Other Ark of Taste seeds we are saving are Witboer pumpkin, nastergal, mokopane African horned cucumber,jugo beans, Cape rough lemon , together with cowpeas, double lima beans, sorghum, millet. These seeds are being distributed to farmers and home growers in the region to start propagating and telling the stories of these seeds in the hope of reviving interest in traditional products. My food garden, The Seed Studio has been recognized as a Slow Food Farm. I am hoping that through growing the Slow Food Farms network, we will be able to expand the campaign of seed saving, by training farmers and food growers in saving their own seeds and creating community seed banks. This is key in unlocking the ability for biodiversity in agriculture”.

Claudia Rânja, Slow Food Târgu Mure, Romania: “The love for seeds was planted in me in the fall of 2016 when I volunteered at the Nyéléni Forum for Food Sovereignty, held in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. So, in the spring of 2017, I started my journey as a gardener, on borrowed land, with 32 different peasant, open-pollinated seeds. And since then, my seed library (which I named FLORA, after my mother) has grown to almost a thousand different open-pollinated seeds. Every year, I grow a generous variety of annuals along with the many perennials that I have planted over the last 8 years, using agroecological practices and an agroforestry approach to bring balance and resilience to the space of the garden, providing shelter to many creatures and an abundance of food. At the beginning of each year, I plan the growing season, considering which seeds I have and/or want to multiply and save (between 70 and 100 different seeds per season) so I can keep my seed library alive. I share the surplus seeds mainly with the Slow Food school gardens in Târgu Mure and other educational projects involving children and other seed keepers”.

To know more about the activities of Slow Food worldwide, please visit: https://www.slowfood.com/our-activities/

More on the International Day for Biodiversity:

https://www.cbd.int/biodiversity-day

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