Community Seed & Knowledge
A seed is an integral part of the fabric of their culture and traditions. Communities have interwoven seed into their customs and rituals for thousands of years, from rites of passage such as marking births, marriages and deaths, as well as for ceremonies within Sacred Natural Sites. The fertile, regenerative qualities of seed are symbolic of life itself; of the feminine, life giving qualities of the Earth.
The inextricable link between seed and cultural practices means that the loss of indigenous seed is followed swiftly by a loss of cultural traditions (and vice versa). The push for modern hybrids and genetically modified (GM) seed threatens biodiversity as well as cultural diversity. When indigenous seed is lost or made illegal, with corporations pushing hybrid or patented seed and associated chemical products, then life for rural communities’ fractures. In place of naturally fertile, re-producing seed, they are sold something altogether different – modern hybrids and genetically modified versions of a ‘seed’ that cannot reproduce. This is a profound violation of life’s regenerative capacity.
The commodification of our food system by global corporations is a system built on profits, trade and ownership.
AFRICE and our partners resist the industrial food system, the genetic engineering of seed and food crops, toxic chemicals, and the rapacious drive for land grabbing for industrial monoculture.