Exchanging seeds and telling stories about them is probably among the oldest springtime rituals ever since humans started farming. This is somewhat different from modern day online and offline catalogue browsing or garden-center shopping of mostly industrial F1 hybrids. Over the past years, the renaissance of local seed exchanges and festivals all across Europe has been severely hit by COVID – but they are dormant seeds, ready to re-emerge as soon as sun and rain allow.

On March 2^nd we invite you to join our trans-european online seed festival that is rooted in these old and new rituals and that will concentrate on how to save and cultivate legume seed: beans, lentils, peas, chickpeas, fava and all their diversity. From 5 to 8 pm there will be a lot of storytelling on seed saving and exchange, there will be films, instructions and presentations, breakout groups for direct exchange, discussions and specialities and we will announce and award the winners of our ongoing bean beauty contests.

Of course, our seed festival will also facilitate real seed exchange between participants, who can offer their seed in advance, present them in breakout groups and finally exchange their real seeds via real mail.

Ready to share – want to learn more?

Register here for the online event
Describe the seeds you are offering through this form before the event
Check out and vote on the bean beauty contest before the event
Ask your questions here – They will be answered during our talks “How to exchange?” and Meet and greet sessions

How to exchange seeds?

The Global Bean Project wants to facilitate the contact between people offering and looking for seeds.

Please fill in this questionnaire with the seeds that you would like to offer. We will gather all the offers into a list shared among the participants of the seed festival. You can also upload pictures there.

Program

17:00 Welcome – Benny Haerlin (Global bean project)

17:10 Film “From Seed to Seed – Bean, Fabaceae” of the Longo Maï project DIY Seeds, displayed in 7 different rooms for English, Arabic, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Dutch and French. Presented by Martina Widmer, director of the Longo Maï cooperative.

17:30 Talks “How do you exchange seeds?” – Initiatives around the world

Panagiotis Sainatoudis from the Greek non profit organisation Peliti will tell us about their experience of protecting and disseminating traditional seeds and local varieties
Marc Haug from the Ecological educational center in Munich (ÖBZ), Germany will share with us insights about conserving and multiplying seeds and will present their coming event celebrating beans diversity in gardening
Daniel Wanjama from the Kenyan Seed Savers Network will tell us all about how they conserve agrobiodiversity and enhance food sovereignty, by strengthening communities’ seed systems and improving seed access
Sylvia Davatz from the north-american Upper Valley Seed Savers will explain how monthly meetings with gardeners and farmers are organised in an effort to increase seed saving knowledge and create a local collection of seeds
Saskia Wesnigk from Seedy Sunday will tell us about their community seed swap event in the UK
Frederica Teixeira from the Portuguese organisation Círculo de Sementes will share with us their work in seed collection and preservation
Barbara Keller from the german association Open house will talk about her experience with conserving and disseminating free seeds and seed exchange events.

Did you know that there are many possibilities to exchange and get seeds worldwide? We will present to you various alternatives that you can join.

18:30 Announcement of the 2022 Fastest Bean competition

18:35 Meet and greet in breakout rooms. Our presenters for questions and answers:

Martina Widmer (Longo Maï, From Seed to Seed)
Patrick Kaiser (Genbänkle)
Panagiotis Sainatoudis (Peliti)
Sylvia Davatz (Upper Valley Seed Savers)
In parallel, Cecilia Antoni will present the preparation of two of her favourite bean recipes (Beanbeat)

19:00 Announcement of the winners of our Bean Beauty contest, Wrap up & announcement of the next Global Bean events

Don’t forget to vote for our Bean Beauty Contest!

19:15 Wandering through breakout rooms for seed exchange: Get in touch with each other to discuss, offer and look for seeds in dedicated breakout rooms.

Please enter in advance the seeds you are offering through this form.

The list with the seeds offered will be shared among the participants and make it easy to exchange.