Speakers
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Holly SilvesterThe Gaia Foundation Seed Sovereignty programmeHolly Silvester is a commercial vegetable and seed grower, based at East Neuk Market Garden in Fife, Scotland. She also works part time for the Gaia Foundation Seed Sovereignty Programme in UK & Ireland, as Future Resilience Seed Coordinator, facilitating the programme’s Crowd Breeding Project and inspiring others to explore the radical possibilities of seed. In 2024 Holly travelled the Pacific Northwest of the US & Canada on a Churchill Fellowship, exploring collaborative & dynamic approaches to seed production that build resilience and diversity. Before embarking on her journey into agroecological farming, Holly trained in formal horticulture, and has a background in urban community growing
Before embarking on her journey into agroecological farming, Holly trained in formal horticulture, and has a background in community growing, working for grassroots organisations helping people from local communities grow food and create gardens in urban spaces.
She is an aspiring seed grower and self-confessed soil biology nerd, particularly interested in bringing genetic diversity back to our food system through growing modern landraces. -
Edwin NuijtenECO-PB
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Cathleen McCluskeyOrganic Seed Alliance and University of Wisconsin-Madison (US)Cathleen McCluskey is the executive director of Organic Seed Alliance, a national organization that conducts research and training with seed farmers and develops policies for organic seed, food, and farming systems, and a lecturer in agroecology and educational policy studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Cathleen serves on the National Organic Standards Board, the US Federal Advisory Board that makes recommendations on issues involving the production, handling, and processing of organic products. Her research focuses on the intersections between seed systems, intellectual property, germplasm management and diversity, data access and transparency, and democratization of science and knowledge. Cathleen’s interdisciplinary research and teaching are grounded in practitioner experience and experimental learning, and her advocacy expertise includes participatory policy development that supports farmers’ access to and management of seed, public research, and reinvigoration of public plant breeding. She holds a PhD in Environment and Resources and an MS in Agroecology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Frederik van OudenhovenFederatie van agro-ecologische boeren (Netherlands)
Other Organizers
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The Gaia Foundation – Seed Sovereignty Programme
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Email
info@gaianet.org -
Website
https://www.seedsovereignty.info/
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ECO – PB
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Website
https://www.eco-pb.org/about-eco-pb.html
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Federatie van agro-ecologische boeren
WS 9: Affectionate Alliances and Exploratory Mindsets: Building a Global Coalition of Agroecological Seed Networks for Evolutionary Radical Futures
One response to the rise of the chemical seed industry in the Global North that has rapidly privatized and consolidated seed ownership under unfettered capitalism, has been the growth of organic and agroecological seed networks built on community and participatory values (Colley et al., 2021). These networks continue to form and evolve as its stewards embrace radical imaginaries and build genetically and culturally diverse seed systems for today and generations to come. Within these networks, organizations have developed an impressive catalogue of resources to train, educate, mobilize, monitor, and strengthen the alternative seed systems they are co-creating. These niche networks in the Global North have aligned missions to protect and grow agrobiodiversity, employ complimentary participatory-based methods, and therefore are creating similar resources to achieve their vision. What is needed for the functional evolution of these innovation systems (Wood & Lubbel, 2025) is intentional sharing of knowledge and network resources for collective power building within and among agroecological seed systems.
In this participatory workshop, we’ll discuss templates and collective strategies to advance agroecological seed systems within nations/regions and across the globe. Participants will co-create collaborative strategies to evidence what is being learned within networks, and what approaches have been successful in resisting consolidation and building alternative seed realities. Workshop presenters will crowdsource existing and nascent resources and categories to catalogue, such as network mapping projects from Let’s Liberate Diversity and Organic Seed Alliance, seed and breeding educational resources, online communities of practice like Organic Seed Commons and Community Seed Network, and more.
This movement building has potential to waterfall effective organizing at the local, national, and global levels, including 1) community breeding projects, 2) developing alternative ownership and intellectual property rights models, and 3) monitoring public global seed bank systems to ensure they serve the public good. The discussions and knowledge sharing in this workshop will integrate with the many threads being woven into the tapestry of a thriving, resilient radical future of seed diversity locally and globally. Building on insights and momentum from this session, organizers will host similar workshops at events throughout the Global North, including the Organic Seed Growers Conference, Gaia Foundation Seed Sovereignty Programme Seed Gathering, IFOAM Seeds Platform, and Organic Seed Alliance virtual quarterly calls. We have the ingenuity, the creativity, and the relationships with our seeds to continue to build a future that is radically different from the paradigm of unfettered capitalism that is failing around us. This participatory workshop is one of many convenings that will help us get there, together.
References
Colley MR, Dawson JC, McCluskey C, Myers JR, Tracy WF, Lammerts van Bueren ET (2021). Exploring the emergence of participatory plant breeding in countries of the Global North – a review. The Journal of Agricultural Science 159, 320–338. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021859621000782
Wood L, Lubbel M (2025). Resource constellations and institutional logics shape network structures of the organic seed niche innovation system. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 55, 100965.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2025.100965
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