Events

In many countries of the world, including in the Black Sea region, a decrease in the diversity of plant genetic resources (PGR), considered a significant factor for environmental protection and mitigating the effect of climate change, is reported with concern. Particularly alarming is the systematically increasing loss of traditional local, authentic, old varieties of vegetables grown by small farmers, heirloom gardeners and hobby growers. These vegetables are increasingly losing the battle to the ones industrially produced, even though they are in daily demand and are preferred by the customers on the market, regardless of their higher prices. According to the UN FAO, local and indigenous varieties of food may have 1000 times the nutrient content of the more common varieties, which makes them extremely valuable for the humanity. This makes this proposal of high contribution to the people’s healthy diet.

The decline in the production of local traditional vegetables leads to the loss of their seeds as genetic resource. In seed stores, the share of the traditional vegetable seeds is very small, if any. Authentic vegetable seeds can only be found from small agro-producers who continue to harvest and store seeds for their next production using traditional old methods. The increasing inaccessibility of seeds of traditional local vegetable varieties has engaged the attention of scientists and drove policy measures and actions of many national governments, the national genetic banks and a number of representative institutions, such as the Biodiversity International, the EC, the UN, etc. In Europe, the Scandinavian genetic bank, NordGen, is very active in reviving old vegetable landraces. The UN FAO initiated a legally binding global agreement, into force in 2004, the “International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture”, ITPGRFA, for the conservation and sustainable use of all plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of their use, in harmony with the Convention on Biological Diversity, for sustainable agriculture and food security. Currently, it has 149 Contracting Parties (countries) including the EU.

One of the actively implemented practical solutions in some countries is the creation of local community seed collections (CSCs) and community seed banks (CSBs), to store the seeds of old local traditional vegetables for reproduction and expansion of their territory. CSCs and CSBs are created, maintained and operated by local vegetable producers and communities, which are recognized by the international organizations as the contributors to the diversity of crops that feed the people and are part of a system to provide farmers and plant breeders with seeds and the scientists with access to plant genetic materials.

CSCs and CSBs are instrumental for mitigation of climate change and guaranteeing the food security of communities and citizens in general. They also support agrobiodiversity, healthy food production and diversity of food products on the market. The local authentic traditional vegetables have built integrity with the surrounding environment during a long period of time and have adapted to it. This makes them more resilient to diseases than industrial hybrid vegetable varieties which allow growing them without using artificial stimulants (chemicals).

With this project, we will establish CSCs on pilot territories of the PPs countries with a prospect to become CSBs at a next stage, with modern equipment for full potential and functionality and support from the national gene banks and research institutes, as part of enabling ecosystem environment for their sustenance. The members of the CSCs will be selected among small farmers, heirloom and hobby gardeners from the local communities after a careful procedure. Public media campaigns will be announced for collection of seeds of local vegetable landraces, thus giving a good example to follow by other Black Sea territories.

The following outputs will result from the activities’ execution: Development and introduction of the innovative CSBs model in the pilot locations; Capacity building activities for the target groups including training & tutoring actions and organization of peer review exchange meetings of the seeds providers; Info events organized on the PPs territories for raising awareness and stimulation of joint initiatives for seeds’ preservation; Digital tools promoting CSCs in the four pilot territories; A Policy Document with recommendations for measures to be taken by policy and decision makers in support of the CSCs.

SeedGuard is a partnership initiative of four partners representing four Black Sea countries: the Union of Bulgarian Black Sea Local Authorities as a lead partner, the Eastern Black Sea Development Agency (Turkey), the Association Global Project (Romania) and the National Association of Local Authorities (Georgia).

The project is co-founded by the European Union throughout the Program Interreg Next Black Sea Basin with 440.143,20 EUR and it is implemented in the period July 2024-January 2026.

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