Join FAIR FOOD WEEK + Judging a photo competition

Its been a hugely busy period of transition for the Homage to the Seed project. Finally moving into the new home and studio 3 weeks ago but still waiting for internet connection has meant online communications were tailed down to rare posts, tweets and such... but ... things have been brewing.

painting the new studio!

Like this FAIR FOOD WEEK competition below which I am one of the judges for and is open till Sunday 25th 9pm. You have to live in Australia to be eligible for prizes but its open to all around the globe to be part of the conversation which aims to increase interest and understudying of what a FAIR Food System is and how all of us are called to take a part in ensuring we preserve the kind of food future we wish to preserve for generations to come! 

HAVE YOU GOT ANY GREAT PHOTOS OF YOUR FOOD GARDEN OR KITCHEN CREATIONS?

(Please share this info if you can!)

The story so far... results of round one:

Finalists

FLAVOURCRUSADER AUGUST 11, 2013 RESPOND

PHOTO COMPETITION
Are you a finalist?

Thank you to the farmers, gardeners and cooks for taking the time out of your busy lives to enter. Your stories are beautiful! You shared sweet moments, heavenly food and a little piece of you. Sophie Munns, the preliminary judge, evaluated entries by the criteria of impact, creativity and story. Below are the finalists from Round One. Congratulations!

If you didn’t make it this time, never mind. Try, try, try again! Don’t forget every entry is in the running for Peoples’ Choice, so share your favourite entry and ask your friends to vote! Seecompetition details for more information.

FINALISTS FOR ROUND ONE

Produce by ppmak
It’s not always about what you can grow to eat. Green manure is both tasty and essential for soil vitality! #myfoodstory

Produce by ppmak
This thyme is my favourite plant in the garden. It’s been through neglect and drought. 8 years and still giving more than I give. I love running my hands through it and breath in that earthy smell. #myfoodstory

Dish by spooky_girl
My entry for #MyFoodStory. Homemade pasta for my lasagna. Definitely not for everyday, this #dish is an all day affair that is eaten in an instant!

Dish by Bec
This lovely Roast Vege soup is made from roasted root vegetables, including a variety of lovely home grown pumpkins. We grow heaps of different pumpkins and squash each warm season, then store them on our back patio table over Winter. They store well, and slowly get used up in mash, soup, risotto, and with a good old roast dinner. While the oven is on for the roast, I add cubed pumpkin and root vegetables, to then make this soup!

Produce by Bec
These are a selection of our home grown, dried beans, with gorgeous scarlet runner beans in front. The beans are left on the vine until they are fat and start to dry, then we pod them, dry the beans thoroughly, store them, and use them through Winter!

Produce by Sandra
Asparagus Pea Flower I love experimenting with unusual veggies- the sort you’ll never find in the supermarket. The bonus is when they’re beautiful as well, like these bicolour scarlet flowers that I get before the pods form.

Produce by ppmak
A scraggly harvest of spring onions that will go in my lunch. They’re just waking up for spring! What are you growing in your garden? Do you have a food story? Play along with Flavour Crusader, just by adding #myfoodstory #dish or #produce to your post!

Produce by Belinda
In 2011 my tomatoes went nuts! I had an abundance of Mini Romas and Tomatoberries, although the possums got a few and the neighbours’ kids were welcome to share. Hunting for recipes to use them up, tomato and goat cheese tarts went down a treat for Christmas lunch, and delicious semi-dried tomatoes lasted well into Winter.

Produce by Cynthia
Summers produce from our garden in Seymour.

Want to share your food story?

Enter Now

These were the finalists from Round One, from competition start until 9pm AEST Friday 16th, 2013. Check back soon for Round Two!

FOR COMPETITION TIPS & UPDATES
Follow FlavourCrusader (Facebook or Twitter) and Fair Food Week (Facebook or Twitter).

FOR DELICIOUSNESS AND MISCHIEF
Sign up to FlavourCrusader.

ABOUT FAIR FOOD WEEK: 

Fair Food Week — 19-25 August 2013

FFW JUNE 23, 2013 5

What is Fair Food Week?

Coordinated by Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA), to support the Peoples’ Food Plan, Australia’s first-ever Fair Food Week shines a light on our new story of food.

Over the week — 19-25 August 2013 — you will discover events across the country that will attract, intrigue and entertain you:

• forums 
• workshops
•  speakers
•  films
•  farmers’ fairs
•  food swaps
•  community garden and farm tours
•  and more, much more.

The week’s events will celebrate the work of Australia’s fair food pioneers – the women and men doing the vital work of creating a fairer food system for all of us.

What’s fairness got to do with food?

Lots. Let’s start with farmers not being paid well by major retail chains for the food they grow and raise for us. Then there’s excessive food imports that unfairly disadvantage not only Australian farmers and farm workers but our food processors as well. And about much of that imported food… do we really know how it was grown and processed… and what was put on it to make it grow or easier to process… whether farm and factory workers enjoyed healthy, good and fair working conditions?

And there’s one more thing about fairness, and that’s about fair access to good, tasty food for the thousands of Australians and their children living on low incomes.

So, what’s that got to do with me?

It’s your chance to do what it is that you do best when it comes to food wherever you sit in the paddock-to-plate-and-back-again journey. You’ll have our support to grab attention via print and social media, word of mouth advertising, promotion at markets, restaurants, cafes, and libraries.

All over the country during the Fair Food Week people will create and participate in story-telling, workshops and other events the possibilities of which are limited only by your imagination.

Most of all, during Fair Food Week, go out and enjoy food produced fairly — that’s fairly in the social, economic and environmental sense.

How can we help make it happen…

Fair Food Week is a good idea we want to see take off because it’s about food fairness for all of us.

So, it’s time to put on our thinking caps and plough into that random access memory of our brains, there to find creative, crazy, innovative and intriguing ideas for you and your friends to make something wonderful happen during Fair Food Week.

And… we would LOVE to hear back from you ASAP so that we can begin to shape this week into wonderful reality.

• submit your event/s
• enter the photo competition to win over $750 of food-lover’s prizes
• join our twitter conversation — #fairfoodweek.
• like us on facebook.

Contacts AFSA organisers in different cities and regions.

Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

Off to the studio to hang the art show opening officially on Thursday night... doors open tomorrow, Wednesday at midday actually. Much to do.

This news is just out...  from homage to the seed Facebook page ...you can read what's happening at the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance -  AFSA Website and stay tuned for more.

THANKYOU to Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance for these wonderful words:
This image, which graces the cover of the People's Food Plan Working Paper, is the work of Brisbane-based artist Sophie Munns (http://sophiemunns.weebly.com/). It...See More

This image, which graces the cover of the People's Food Plan Working Paper, is the work of Brisbane-based artist Sophie Munns (http://sophiemunns.weebly.com/). It is part of her 'Homage to the Seed' project, launched in 2010 and now in its fourth year. We are really excited to be able to present Sophie's work to a new audience and very grateful that she has given us permission to use this beautiful work of art.

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Sydney Peace Prize - 2010: Dr Vindana Shiva

Biodiversity as Green Oil ?

Seed Copyright?

Seed Sovereignty?

what is this?

Dr Vindana Shiva

In October last year I posted on Dr Vindana Shiva at Navdanya, Grandmother's University where some of her initiatives were presented - such as a learning centre Bija Vidyapeeth (School of the Seed) on biodiversity conservation at an organic farm in Doon Valley, Uttranchal, north India.

Bija Vidyapeeth is Sanskrit for “Seed Learning Centre” with “bija” meaning literally “seed” as well as “origin” or “source.” The Bija Vidyapeeth seal also says “vasudhaiv kutumbakam” in Sanskrit. This means “one world family.”

Today I am adding this information Give Mother earth a Chance about the lecture given by Vindana Shiva at the Sydney (Australia) Opera House in November 2010 when she was awarded with the Sydney Peace Prize.

Give Mother Earth A Chance

(click on this heading to go to website and see lecture video!)

30 Nov 2010, 11:00
“If commerce starts to undermine life support, then commerce must stop, because life has to carry on.” This is the central premise Dr Vandana Shiva’s passionate address for the 2010 City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture, in which she lambasts global corporations for waging war against nature in the name of profits.

Shiva argues that when commonly used agricultural herbicides have names like “Round Up”, “Squadron”, “Avenge”, one can see there is war being waged against nature…and the humans are winning at the cost of their own future. To Vandana Shiva, fighting for peace for ‘Mother Earth’ is the broadest peace movement we can engage in.

She calls for a form of ‘Earth Democracy’, that re-imagines the biosphere as a citizen, that has universal rights that need protecting and defending.

Dr Vandana Shiva is speaking at the Sydney Opera House for the City of Sydney Peace Prize.

The Sydney Peace Prize was established by the Sydney Peace Foundation in 1998. Each year a prize is awarded to an organisation or individual who has made significant contributions to global peace. Previous winners include Patrick Dodson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson, Arundhati Roy, Hans Blix and more.

Dr Vandana Shiva is a physicist, environmental activist, author and eco-feminist. As a physicist she trained at the University of Western Ontario and specialised in Quantum Theory. As an environmental activist she has worked for campaigns that focus on the issues of bio-piracy, genetic engineering, sustainable agriculture, intellectual property rights and biodiversity. She has written many books on environmental issues including “The Violence of Green Revolution”, “Bio-piracy: the Plunder of Nature and Knowledge”, “Water, Wars: Privatization, Pollution and Profit”, “Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability and Peace” and her most recent book “Soil Not Oil” released in 2008. In 1991, Shiva established “Navdanya” a food security movement based in over 16 states in India, it aims to empower farmers to protect their economic livelihoods and natural resources, especially native seeds. Shiva has been awarded several awards for her efforts including the Right Livelihood Award and the United Nations Environment Program [UNEP] Global 500 Award in 1993, and most recently the 2010 City of Sydney Peace Prize.

Vandana Shiva has been recognised for her work on the empowerment of women in developing countries, her advocacy of the human rights of small farming communities, and her scientific analysis of environmental sustainability.

Vandana is founder of the Navdanya movement and the Bija Vidyapeeth learning centre in India, recognized as a school of the future.

Sydney Peace Foundation director, Professor Stuart Rees, said Dr Shiva was an inspiring recipient of the award. “Many communities are threatened by the consequences of global warming, yet in Australia the movement to address this issue has gone to sleep,” he said. “Vandana’s presence in Sydney in November should wake them up.”

Other distinguished recipients of Australia’s only international prize for peace have included previous Nobel recipients Professor Muhammad Yunus, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson.

Mary Kostakidis, chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation, said governments around the world sought Dr Shiva’s counsel on issues of sustainable development. “Vandana Shiva’s work highlights the fundamental connection between human rights and the protection of the environment,” Ms Kostakidis said. “She offers solutions to some of the most critical problems posed by the effects of globalisation and climate change on the poorest and most populous nations.”

On a sombre note read the Observer Newspaper's January 2 , 2011 story from India:

India's hidden climate change catastrophe (click on the heading!)

Over the past decade, as crops have failed year after year, 200,000 farmers have killed themselves

By Alex Renton

Images from a Seed Course at Navdanya

Seed Course

Seed Course

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From the Vandanya vision:

“Life will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom. But it will be an oceanic circle whose center will be the individual always ready to perish for the village, the latter ready to perish for the circle of villages till at last the whole becomes one life composed of individuals, never aggressive in their arrogance, but ever humble, sharing the majesty of he oceanic circle of which they are integral units. Therefore, the outermost circumference will not wield power to crush the inner circle, but will give strength to all within and will derive its own strength from it.”

Message from the Founder:

Over the past three decades I have tried to be the change I want to see. When I found that dominant science and technology served the interests of powerful, I left academics to found the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, a participatory, public interest research organisation. When I found global corporations wanted to patent seeds, crops or life forms, I started Navdanya to protect biodiversity, defend farmers’ rights and promote organic farming.

Navdanya/RFSTE’s journey over the past two decades has taken us into creating markets for farmers and promoting tasty, healthy, high quality food for consumers. We have connected the seed to the kitchen, biodiversity to gastronomy. And now we have joined hands with Slow Food to celebrate the quality and cultural diversity of our food.

The seed has inspired us to spread the message of sustainability through Bija Vidyapeeth, which I started with Satish Kumar as a sister institution of the Schumaker College in the UK.

My journey on the road to ecological sustainability started with the Chipko movement in the 1970s when women in the region of the Himalayas protected forests by hugging trees.

For me, ecology and feminism have been inseparable. And Diverse Women for Diversity is one expression of combining women’s rights and nature’s rights, celebrating our cultural diversity and biological diversity.

The defence of nature’s rights and people’s rights have come together for me in Earth Democracy – the democracy of all life on earth, a living democracy which supports and is supported by living culture and living economies.

I am happy you have visited us on the web. We look forward to your visit to our farm, our cafe, our school. Let us together build an earth family. Let us in our diversity create an earth democracy.

If you're in Brisbane over the next few days... or the 9th of October....

This weekend.......

Read here to see the program of events and writers speaking....some free ...some ticketed!

......then in October at the same venue!

Unlimited AP: Free Public Talk: Smart Cities and Eco Warriors

Saturday, October 09, 2010 from 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM (GMT+1000)

Brisbane, Queensland

Click here to book!

Join our panel of urban food revolutionaries, led by international architect and author CJ Lim, for their glimpse at a future where cities refocus as productive agricultural places.

Humans have desired fresh healthy food since time immemorial. Yet modern systems have made distance an irrelevance. Processing, packaging, transportation and storage account for 80% of the energy used to place food on the plate. Produce travels an average of 2000 to 3000km from farmer to consumer.

As we experience a global food crisis resulting from climate change, increasing populations, low productivity, and food crops being converted to biofuels, the world is heading for a drop in agricultural production of 20 to 40 percent.

Can this challenge be surmounted through new systems of urban agriculture?

Picture cities that produce food rather than simply consuming it, diverse natural places where planning, building, and transportation make way for the most crucial of human necessities – food.

Can a new urban economy blossom, where individuals communities and businesses will restructure their relationship to the urban habitat – creating a new era of urbanism where past and future converge?

Speakers include: CJ Lim (Studio 8 Architects UK, Author Smart Cities and Eco Warriors), Richard Weller (University of Western Australia, Author Boomtown 2050),

Its a free event ... so book now!!! Check the website for other events on as part of this special Asia Pacific Week.

Venue: The State Library of Qld.

interior of State Library

This image was found at CITY OF SOUND blog ...be sure to see the other images at this blog if you like libraries or architecture...its a fabulous building!

courage and more....

Last year I read a story from Iraq that was said to have occurred in 2004 when US occupation made deals with transnational seed companies to bring in seeds for Iraqi farmers to purchase  - making it illegal to grow and save their own seeds. Skimming one article does not provide the necessary understanding of what occurred.  However... googling Iraq and the seed companies I found many stories covering this in far more detail. ... I hope to have quoted from a reliable source below. NB Apologies for the text in this post - it was not possible to correct it!

Grain farmers in Iraq

Given Iraq was part of the region I recall learning of at school as the Cradle of Civilisation the fact of this ancient culture having such an intervention placed on it struck me as critically shocking. 

This excerpt from Celsius.com tells something of the story;

With economic overhaul intended to legalize the Iraqi state’s dependency on foreign corporations came CPA Order 81. Beyond economic implications, this order also houses huge potential for environmental degradation in Iraq. Order 81, according to a jointly issued report  from Focus on the Global South and GRAIN, has “made it illegal for Iraqi farmers to re-use seeds harvested from new varieties registered under the law.” 

While it does not make illegal Iraqis’ use of traditional seed stocks they have already saved, in reality the paired devastation of drought and the war in the region may make holding onto these stored seeds more difficult. As time passes and these seeds disappear, Order 81’s intentions will manifest; a new seed market will emerge in Iraq in which every cropping season Iraqi farmers must purchase seeds from transnational corporations like Monsanto.

Fast facts about agricultural biodiversity: from Diversity for Life.

Reading this article below and one on the Russian Nikolai Vavilov here at Diversity for Life  recalls the post I added on the Vavilov institute in Russia last week. Seed Banks have their critics... and Im sure the people who work in them are highly aware of their limitations.  Research on this topic seems to point to the need for conservation at all levels of society and community as being necessary... not one without the other. 

Challenges today would seem to be too great to rely on any one method. The floods and devastation in Pakistan emphasise how great the vulnerability can be. Homes and lives lost....and with that no doubt the capacity of people to grow food and feed their families will prove to be dramatically affected for a significant time to come. Local seed saving initiatives by individuals and in communities are also likely to have been washed away.

As research for Homage to the Seed proceeds I am constantly reminded that the realm of botany, plants, seeds in 2010 is not what is was decades ago let alone centuries ago.  

Colonisation and slavery were tied up with the great age of discovery of the world's botanical bounty. Australia's troubling history in relation to indigenous people and the early convict settlements is not always recalled when we pour over the wonders  we associate with Joseph Banks and co. 

Contemporary issues are so complex and sobering that one can hardly remain a gardening enthusiast or gourmand without acknowledging the complexities that come with this realm. These enthusiasms are a privilege best acknowledged when so much is at risk. Below is an inspiring story I wished to share.

Mrs. Sanaa Abdul Wahab Al-Sheikh

by ADMIN on JULY 6, 2010

Mrs. Sanaa Abdul Wahab Al-Sheikh joined the Iraqi national genebank in Abu Ghraib in 1988. “This is when I discovered what I wanted to do with my life,” she said. By 1994, Mrs. Sanaa´s hard work had paid off and she was promoted to the position of Head of Plant Genetic Resources.

Aware of the growing tensions in the country, Mrs. Sanaa decided to take some precautions to ensure that the material conserved in the Abu Ghraib genebank would be kept safe in the event of war. “I took the most important accessions to my house and hid them in my fridge. I also buried accessions in the office garden. I prepared sealed bags of accessions and buried them in a hole and then covered the hole with grass and plants to ensure that they were well hidden.”

“During the war, things were very difficult. There was no fuel and no electricity, making it difficult for me to get to the office and to do my work, but I kept on going anyway. Then on the 9th April 2003, the security situation deteriorated to such an extent that I was forced to stay home for a whole week,” recounted Mrs. Sanaa.

When Mrs. Sanaa returned to the office a week later on foot, she was stunned to find that the genebank had been looted and destroyed. “I cried so much when I saw what they had done,” she recalled. “The first thing I did was rush to check that the accessions were still safely buried in the garden.” Fortunately they were, and Mrs. Sanaa made sure that they were safely hidden by covering them with more plants and grass.

By 2004, the State Board for Seed Testing and Certification began works to reconstruct the genebank. Mrs. Sanaa scoured farmers fields around the country collecting hundreds of accessions to rebuild the collection. Along with about a thousand accessions she had saved from the old collection, these now make up the new collection at the Iraqi national genebank at Abu Ghraib, where Mrs. Sanaa continues to work today.

Tagged as: genebank, Guardian of Diversity, Iraq, seeds

NB: January 2013... a website no longer exists as DIVERSITY FOR LIFE. Instead go to the updated version: 

www.bioversityinternational.org

and on Facebook: 

www.facebook.com/bioversityinternational

Also look at these related links from Bioversity International:

• The Iraqi Seed Project « Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
• The Seeds: Straight to the Source -
• Inside Abu Ghraib « Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
• Collecting germplasm in the Iraqi desert
• Regenerating Iraqi wheat

FOUND here : http://agro.biodiver.se/2010/02/abu-ghraib-genebank-rises-from-the-ashes-thanks-to-sanaa/

Post altered January 5, 2013 by Sophie Munns. 

In rereading this story I am again struck by the courage of this woman and others like her in the course of carrying out their work.