Seed Libraries Support Climate Resilience

GSS is innovative in its audacity to stand up to the industrial agriculture system through empowering smallholder farmers in the Philippines to return to the indigenous practice of growing and saving their own seeds. Providing smallholder farmers with the tools and support needed to relinquish any dependence on large bio-chemical agricultural companies restores sovereignty over their food supply and improves quality of life.

The act of saving seed is as old as human civilization. This knowledge is being lost along with the crop biodiversity it guarantees. Industrialized agriculture and seed conglomerates have capitalized on this trend by patenting modified seed stock for staple/cash crop varieties, then sterilizing them to prevent reproduction of viable seed. Not only are farmers forced to re-purchase new seed each season, they are unable to adapt their seed stock to become more resilient to fluctuations in their regional bio-climate through harvesting and saving the most vigorous seed for replanting.
This project seeks to expand the GSS successful model in Benguet Province to new regions of the Philippines. By launching Seed Library Kits in new partner communities they will be able to start their own community Seed Libraries and ensure their resiliency in the face of climate change. Each Seed Library Kit will include all of the materials needed to launch a Seed Library: 20 packs of starter seeds, seed library physical equipment (storage jars, silica gel packets, ph meters, seed envelopes, seed packet labeling materials etc), seed saving educational books, example seed library rules and logistics etc.