BSB00450

SEEDGUARD: Seed Guardians for Biodiversity, Agrobiodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Climate Adaptation

Project consortium:

• Union of Bulgarian Black Sea Local Authorities (UBBSLA) – Lead partner
• Eastern Black Sea Development Agency, DOKA (Turkey)
• Association Global Project, AGP (Romania)
• National Association of Local Authorities, NALAG (Georgia)

Total budget: 489,048.00 EUR

Project duration: 18 months

Funded: (Interreg VI-B) NEXT Black Sea Basin Programme; Programme priority: Clean and Green Region; Specific objective RSO2.7: Enhancing protection and preservation of nature, biodiversity and green infrastructure, including in urban areas, and reducing all forms of pollution

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Due to highly industrialised and golobalised agri food production and the rising up risks from the negative climate change impacts, the traditional vegetables and landraces preservation is increasingly considered to be of critical importance as a priceless resource that could prevent food crisis – worldwide and in the Black Sea countries as well. Many organisations and researchers, such as the Biodiversity International, the NIBIO institute, etc., conclude that two in five of the world’s plant species are at risk of extinction. There are gene banks in the Black Sea countries, which are housing collections of plant species that are invaluable for scientific research, education, species preservation and safeguarding local cultures, but they are not instrumental in provision of traditional vegetable seeds to breeders, farmers, heirloom gardeners and hobby growers. The Black Sea countries witness problems in how to use and maintain agrobiodiversity, which is dramatically disappearing.

Our project is responding to this challenge by establishing local CSC’s in pilot locations of the project partner countries, as a model for preservation of traditional heritage vegetable seeds as valuable PGR resource and providing them to growers for reproduction and enhancement of their territories. There is no evidence of existence of CSCs or CSBs in the Black Sea project partner countries. Seeds exchange happens between individuals in the social network and this is the only way the heritage seeds can be accessed. There is, unfortunately, no vision at policy and decision levels on their onfarm growing for saving and multiplication.

The project is aiming at showing a model for improved access of vegetable growers to old varieties as a holistic ingredient of ecosystem, for food and agriculture, cooperation and economic validation and integration of considerations about biodiversity and ecosystem services’ of local landraces considerations into sectoral policies. The preliminary study of the access of traditional farmers, gardeners and hobby growers to old vegetable varieties and their seeds showed that there is insufficient access to them. The problem is not only the deficiency of the demanded traditional food products on the market. The decrease in traditional old vegetable varieties is a problem for research, the maintenance of the gene banks’ collections (they have to be periodically refreshed) and for policy makers. Currently, collaboration of science and gene banks with farmers is sporadic and no one benefits from each other’s strengths: the farmers, still growing old vegetables thus saving them as genetic resources are not in touch with the gene banks and the institutes, and the gene banks and the institutes do not stimulate and help farmers to maintain and enlarge the diversity of local varieties and populations as PGR.

The project will tackle the identified common challenges by establishment of local community seed collections (CSCs), with a prospect to develop into CSBs in the future. Access to the seeds of traditional local vegetable varieties for the conservation of the bio- and agro-diversity of our environment, in which the cultural diversity of communities is encoded, is defined by international (UN) documents as a vital human right of access to “heritage seeds” as a natural resource and ecosystem service. We studied the degree of implementation in the legislation of the Black Sea countries of the recommendations of international documents on the subject (Nagoya Protocol and the International Agreement on Food and Agriculture Organization). We found that there is a huge backlog in the fulfillment of obligations to provide seeds for production of local varieties of vegetables. One of the solutions, with a limiting effect on climate change as well, are local seed collections and seed banks. We studied the international experiences and explored the approaches for ecosystem services to people through provision of access to seeds for traditional vegetables’ producers, gardeners, hobby growers and breeders by the CSCs. The idea for creation of CSCs or CSBs for saving traditional vegetable seeds is not new in the partners’ countries, but so far none have been created.

For the implementation of the project, we will engage those who can (small producers of vegetables, seeds and seedlings); we will involve those who want (civil society and broad public) and those who must (public institutions) in establishment of a CSC’s in pilot locations of the project partner countries. We will suggest policy measures for support of the CSCs and a model for networking with the gene banks for facilitation of exchange and integration of scientific as well as practical knowledge on how to best manage diversity in agriculture and in the entire food chain for restoring evolutionary and adaptation processes of vegetables’ landraces. The project will organize trainings for acknowledgement of the target groups with the CSC’s concept, its origin, function and purpose, good practices in Europe, drivers, objectives and operations. Will provide knowledge on how to select deliverers of heritage seeds, how to obtain healthy, good quality seeds, how to clean, dry and store them, how to document seeds with description of their origin and history, how to restock the seeds, to reproduce, regenerate and multiply them, how to distribute seeds, the financial aspects, etc. As well as how to out-reach and raise awareness of the broad public.