Speaker Profiles 2024
Holly Silvester
Holly is a commercial vegetable and seed grower currently based at Trill Farm Garden in Devon. Alongside growing food, she also works for The Gaia Foundation Seed Sovereignty programme, educating & empowering commercial and community growers to produce and save local, open pollinated seed.
Talk summary: The implications of loss of genetic diversity on plant health, our health and the health of wider ecosystems. See her talk on Youtube
We have lost some 75% of plant genetic diversity over the past century, largely due to the globalisation of our food system but also the shift away from farmer-led plant breeding. I'll be exploring the implication of this loss of genetic diversity on plant health, our health and the health of wider ecosystems. Sharing stories of growers in the UK seed network who are taking things into their own hands, creating diverse plant populations that are dynamic and collaborative, and hopefully resilient to our rapidly changing climate - using plant breeding and seed saving as an act of resistance!
Angus Lam
Angus was born and grew up in Hong Kong. Afer a few years of working as an anti-GM campaigner at Greenpeace, he shifted to work with indigenous communites in Asia to safeguard farmers’ seeds and facilitate farmer-to-farmer agroecological learning in Asia for two decades. Recently, he joined Sims Hill Shared Harvest and Hazelnut Community Farm in Bristol to promote inclusive farming and culturally appropriate foods.
Talk Summary: Discovering the connections between seed sovereignty, climate change and community culture. See his talk on Youtube
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In 2008, I was stuck after a few years of campaigning to stop the commercialisation of GM crops in Asia as the work relied substantially on reactive actions to corporate agendas rather than communicating a vision of our food system, in which the public could engage. On one seed
investigation trip, I met an indigenous farmer in Southeast China, he shared with me 22 heritage rice seeds adapted to different landscape and climatic conditions, while he explained that high-yield hybrid varieties (HYV) were bred to challenge the limitations of nature. After gaining this inspiration, I have committed to supporting small farmers in Asia to conserve their heritage seeds by setting up community seed banks and organising rural seed fairs.
I am happy to share the two-decade journey of how I discovered the connections between seed sovereignty, climate change and community culture through learning from farmers’ wisdom, and how these experiences helped my resettlement inBristol and participation in the Bristol Seed Swap. It’s far from too late to take collective actions to face the polycrisis.
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Adam Alexander, the Seed Detective:
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Talk Summary
'How the domestication of vegetables is the story of civilisation’ - See his talk on Youtube
Meetings with Remarkable Vegetables – from wild parent to cultivated offspring.
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"I have a passion for growing fruit and vegetables, which I have been doing since I was a little kid. Not a year has passed since I was ten that I haven’t grown something to eat. I ran a small market garden in the late seventies when growing organically unusual vegetables was considered very odd. Trying to sell red Brussels sprouts or yellow zucchini was not a profitable business then, so I returned to film-making to support my love of horticulture. My interest in discovering rare, endangered but above all, delicious vegetables from around the world began as the result of meeting a remarkable lady in a vegetable market in Donetsk, Ukraine in the late eighties whilst making a documentary series there. So began a journey of discovery and learning about the social and cultural relationships we have with what we grow that I have been on for the best part of 35 years". More details about Adam, his work and his book can be found on his website https://theseeddetective.co.uk
Adam Alexander
Sara Venn
Other talks on Youtube
In this talk from Bristol Seed Swap 2021, Sara Venn discusses food justice and its important role in a future that focuses on food and seed sovereignty. From homesteading to community farms, grassroots actions can make a future food system that is equitable, allows for culturally appropriate food to be grown and eaten and supports sustainable livelihoods. See her talk on Youtube
Liz Zorab
Liz Zorab: First steps in Food Security. 2021, an online talk during our online covid Seed Swap See her talk on Youtube.
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Liz runs Byther Farm using permaculture and intuitive gardening practices. On less than 0.8 acres, she grows over 80% of the food and drink they enjoy each year. They also sell vegetables via a CSA model. Liz spent more than 20 years working with specialist housing charities and in community development. An award-winning gardener, she gained an RHS Silver Medal for a community-led garden featured on BBC's Gardeners World Live in 2002. A health crisis led Liz to turn to her life-long passion for gardening and grow your own food as a career. She regularly writes for Permaculture Magazine, teaches gardening and self-sufficiency skills and encourages thousands of people to take up their trowels and live their dreams through a vibrant YouTube Channel, Liz Zorab - Byther Farm.
Diane Holness
How and why to save seeds. Seed saving is as fascinating and satisfying as any aspect of gardening andwe need to make it part of the mainstream again.See her talk on Youtube.
Alys Fowler
Polyculture for a beautifully productive edible garden | Bristol Seed Swap 2022
Polyculture, as opposed to monoculture, is the art of growing a variety of different plants together, resulting in an intricate garden design that celebrates biodiversity as well as deliciousness. Alys’ approach is to create a permanent framework of trees, climbers, shrubs and perennials that can be relied on year after year to produce a healthy harvest, interwoven with a complement of annual flowers vegetables that you can sow and grow to suit your tastes as well as your capacity. Polyculture is a key theme in Alys’ book ‘Eat What you Grow’ and it combines principles from permaculture design as well as more conventional organic gardening. See her talk on Youtube.
Discussion
Dan Saladino in conversation with Alys Fowler and Barny Haughton | Bristol Seed Swap 2022
Dan Saladino, food journalist and broadcaster, introduces stories and themes from his astonishing new book ‘Eating to Extinction’. Over the last 50 years, much of the world’s seed has come into the control of just four corporations and the vast majority of our adaptable, resilient strains of locally saved seed have been lost or are highly endangered. Our global food system, now based on a level of uniformity never experienced before, is increasingly vulnerable to diseases, pests and climate extremes. In this talk from Bristol Seed Swap 2022, Dan discussed with Alys Fowler and Barny Haughton what this means for gardeners and growers, and for cooks and chefs at every level, what we can do in our own communities and kitchens to preserve food diversity for future generations.
See their dicussion on Youtube
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