Seed Sharing In Toronto

Seed Sharing has become very popular in both Toronto and around the country 

  There is a Seed Sharing event today in Toronto at the Brickworks.

Seed Sharing at Evergreen Brickworks

Seed Sharing at Evergreen Brickworks

Evergreen Brick Works, 550 Bayview Av
Saturday March 9, 2013          11-4

Contact: Aimee acarson@evergreen.ca

If you are a gardener and are concerned with GMO’s or just want to get into organic seeds the Seed Sharing event might be good one for you to learn more information .

I also found an excellent article this week on Rabble.ca about seed sharing .

It is extremely helpful and informative. Here is a small excerpt that applies specifically to Toronto.

“Seedy Saturdays & Sundays” is a national event held across Canada started by individuals who were members of Seeds of Diversity, a Canadian volunteer organization that conserves the biodiversity and traditional knowledge of food crops and garden plants.

Every Seedy Saturday & Sunday event has a place where you can donate or exchange your clean and labeled packaged seeds at a “Seed Exchange Table”. 

Occupy Gardens Toronto has spent the last year gathering and cataloguing seeds.

“And people have been donating their extra seeds to us,” he said.

Wednesday’s event was also one of many public information and brainstorming sessions about the Toronto Seed Library, a new initiative supported by a wide diversity of seed and good food projects in and around Toronto. 

Their goal is to find a large, central location that can permanently house the bulk of the seed supply along with small, neighbourhood branches in public schools, libraries and community centres.

So people can come into their local Seed Library, pick up seeds, grown their own crops and return some of those seeds to be handed out to others.

“If we can de-commodify the seed and make food sacred, we can continue to grow a community of community gardens around the city,” said Kearey Moreland.

“To take control of their own lives and destiny.”

At the same time, organizers took the opportunity to promote growTO, the urban agriculture action plan for Toronto.   

This spring, Occupy Gardens Toronto intends on replanting the People’s Peas Garden at Queen’s Park that was, said Kearey Moreland, “violently uprooted on the eve of harvest” last year and call on the Premier to introduce a People’s Food Act.

“She campaigned on the promise to introduce a local food act,” he said. “But we want it to be tailored to the people’s interest rather than corporate insiders.”

For urban agriculture enthusiasts, a local food act would prioritize natural methods of food production, puta garden at every school, create a provincial child nutrition program and promote ‘buy local’ initiatives.

Eventually culminating in a national food act.”