15th Let’s Liberate Diversity!
REGISTRATION ARE OPEN UNTIL 30 APRIL
The 15th edition of the LLD Forum will be held in Scandicci from May 23 to 25, 2026, in conjunction with the 5th edition of the 72 Hours of Biodiversity organized by Rete Semi Rurali, Italy.
5 th Let’s Cultivate Diversity!
REGISTRATION ARE ALSO OPEN!
The European Grain Festival 2026 in Denmark combines parallel sessions of baking workshops, cooking demos, tastings, field demonstrations, poster sessions and lectures. You will meet and network with experienced bakers, farmers, chefs, processors, breeders and researchers from all over Europe.
—If you aim to produce quality cereal and cereal based food, this is the place to be.
At the heart of the festival you will find a demonstration field displaying hundreds of diverse grain varieties from all over Europe.
USE IT or LOSE IT
The European Coordination Let’s Liberate Diversity! (ECLLD) is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the dynamic management of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture.
Our core belief is that the diversification of our food systems can be achieved through the collaborative efforts of various stakeholders involved in cultivated biodiversity.
The Coordination boasts a robust network of 22 members with a network of 170 national organizations operating across 21 European countries with a membership base exceeding 35,000.
In collaboration with approximately 15,000 farmers, we actively engage in the conservation and management of around 40,000 plant varieties.
Where we are
We want to bring diversity back in our food system!
Countries across all the Europan Region
Staff and volunteers
Organisations part of the network
Varietes maintend and managed by the network
Individual Members
Farmers and gardeners involved in dynamic management of cultivated biodiversity
What we do
As an influential platform, EC-LLD! serves as a unique space for facilitating the exchange of practices and information among farmers, seed savers, NGO members, and emerging small enterprises, fostering local actions on agrobiodiversity and promoting participatory dialogues.
Our proven expertise extends to our participation in projects funded by Horizon Europe, Erasmus+ and Horizon 2020. Furthermore, we have established successful collaborations with a diverse range of foundations and academic institutions.
Our work span across the 3 following areas
policy
Capacity building and knowledge sharing regarding agrobiodiversity, seed policies and legislastion.
policy
Capacity building and knowledge sharing regarding agrobiodiversity, seed policies and legislastion.
Communities seed banks
Training, support and management across Europe.
Communities seed banks
Training, support and management across Europe.
Communities
Facilitating peer to peer exchange of practices and information between different actors.
Communities
Facilitating peer to peer exchange of practices and information between different actors.
NEWS
New Genomic Techniques in Africa threaten food sovereingty
The African Centre for Biodiversity has published a new briefing examining the development of NGTs in Africa, building on their previous research on deregulation of genome-editing techniques (available here: https://acbio.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Genome-Editing-Fact-Sheet-2_fin-1.pdf).
In this briefing, the ACB find that:
“Countries including Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, Ethiopia, and Burkina Faso have adopted product-based guidelines that exempt many genome-edited crops from GMO regulation if no foreign DNA is present in the final product. This opens a regulatory back door for fast-tracking field trials and potential commercialisation, often without robust public consultation, transparency, or independent risk assessment.
While proponents promote genome editing as a silver bullet for food security and climate resilience, there is little evidence that these technologies are delivering tangible benefits to African farmers. Most projects remain in the laboratory or limited trials, and the pipeline of viable crops is thin.
The paper details current regulatory frameworks, country-by-country project updates, and the key funders and institutions backing genome editing on the continent, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Corteva Agriscience, the United States Agency for International Development, and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. It also sets out critical concerns: risks to seed sovereignty and biodiversity, corporate control through intellectual property, and the erosion of precautionary biosafety systems.”
Read about it here: https://acbio.org.za/gm-biosafety/dont-need-genome-editing-to-ensure-africas-food-sovereignty/
CGRFA-20: Session Outcomes
The FAO’s Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture held an online information session on 26th of June where they presented the outcomes of its 20th Regular Session
You can find the presentation slides (in English) here: CGRFA-20 Outcomes
If you were unable to attend the session or would like to revisit the discussion, the webinar recording is available here.
To stay informed about the Commission’s ongoing work and future activities, we invite you to subscribe to the newsletter via this registration form.
Should you have any questions, feedback or interest in further collaboration, you can also reach out to the CGRFA team at cgrfa@fao.org.
Réseau Semence Paysannes press release: Seeds targeted by war
Our colleagues at Réseau Semence Paysannes published a press communication in response to the Israeli government’s destruction of the seeds bank in Hébron, Palestine. You can access the document on this post, or read the translate version below:
Réseau Semence Paysannes, made up of more than eighty organisations, all involved in initiatives to promote and defend cultivated biodiversity and associated know-how, wishes to reiterate the importance of preserving, multiplying and circulating peasant seeds. Seeds are a response to current environmental and social challenges.
It is in this context that it strongly condemns the destruction on 31 July 2025 of the Palestinian seed farm in Hebron in the West Bank by the Israeli army. On 31 July 2025, the Israeli army bulldozed the infrastructure of a seed production farm belonging to the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), one of the largest agricultural development institutions in Palestine, in Hebron in the West Bank. This production unit was responsible for multiplying part of the collection of farmers’ seeds managed by the UAWC seed bank.
Destroying seeds, the basis of all food, is tantamount to subjugating a people and a country and compromising any possibility of building a viable state. It also represents an irreversible loss of cultivated biodiversity for global agriculture as a whole.
This act of war reveals the Israeli government’s determination to condemn the Palestinian population to a life in refugee camps and deny them food sovereignty. This deliberate violence against civil society as a whole aims to make any form of lasting peace impossible, at a time when several states have decided to recognise the Palestinian state.
In line with its international commitments, Réseau Semence Paysannes condemns this act of war and calls on all its members and supporters to support a movement of solidarity with Palestinian peasant farmers so that they have access to peasant seeds that enable them to feed their populations in accordance with their agricultural culture, which has co-evolved with climate change. We are awaiting feedback from the UAWC in order to adapt the Network’s factual response to this unacceptable situation.
The Board of Réseau Semence Paysannes
RSP Press release (French version)
You can also read more about the destruction of the seed bank here: https://viacampesina.org/en/2025/08/destruction-of-the-hebron-seed-bank-peasant-organizations-across-regions-express-outrage/
Growing the Movement: Connecting Global Seed Networks at the LLD! Forum
Over the past year, a quiet yet powerful convergence has been unfolding in the world of farmers’ seeds. Across regions, many initiatives, networks, and platforms have been working, often in parallel, to support farmers’ seed systems and cultivated biodiversity. While these efforts vary in scope and approach, there is growing recognition that better coordination is needed. A collective effort is now emerging to connect the dots, improve alignment, strengthen exchanges, and explore ways of working more effectively together.
From Shared Conversations to Shared Purpose
This process began in 2024, when ECLLD started facilitating conversations with partners from different regions working on farmers’ seeds. These early exchanges revealed a common challenge: while many collaborations already exist, we often lack visibility on each other’s work. We don’t always know which processes are underway, what strategies are being used, or how decisions made in different spaces might affect the work we are doing with our communities.
The 13th edition of the Let’s Liberate Diversity! Forum, held in Antibes in 2024, marked a turning point. It offered a concrete opportunity to bring together regional and international actors to explore how we might improve coordination and build more connected ways of working. It was also the starting point for imagining a shared ecosystem of collaboration—one that could support mutual learning, policy engagement, and joint action.
An informal group began to take shape following the workshop in Antibes. Since then, it has continued to grow, involving more actors and gaining wider recognition.
Antibes 2024 – First Workshop on Strenghtening Global Seed Networks
Strengthening the Ties: A Global Web in the Making
Today, the momentum continues to build. A growing number of organisations and platforms are actively engaged, including Oxfam’s Community of Practice on Farmers’ Seed Systems, the IFOAM Seed Platform, the Seed Library Network and Open Source Seed Initiative (North America), Farmers’ Seed Networks in China and Kenya, and COASP in West Africa.
Together, these actors are creating a space for dialogue and reflection. It is a space where diverse initiatives can come together to discuss opportunities and explore potential roadmaps for improving strategic coordination in support of farmers’ seeds and cultivated biodiversity.
As we look ahead, this emerging network aims to map who is working on farmers’ seeds worldwide and to create common spaces and shared infrastructure for exchange, coordination, learning, and mobilisation.
Launching the Survey at the LLD Forum 2025
The next milestone will be the launch of a global survey, designed to identify and map the wide range of actors engaged in farmers’ seed systems and cultivated biodiversity around the world. More than just a data collection tool, the survey is a first step in building the foundations for a co-owned global map and shared infrastructure to support the long-term coordination across different movements and initiatives.
The survey will be launched at the Let’s Liberate Diversity! Forum 2025, taking place in Luxembourg from 4–6 September 2025. As part of the Forum, we will host a hybrid workshop to present the survey, refine its dissemination strategy, and explore the next steps toward shared ways of working and the co-development of an ecosystem of collaboration.
Join Us: From Dialogue to Action
This is a unique moment to help shape the future of global collaboration on farmers’ seeds. Whether you are part of a network, an organisation working on seeds, a grassroots initiative, a seed-saving community, a research institution, or a policy platform, your perspective matters. We warmly invite you to join us in Luxembourg, or online, for the LLD Forum and hybrid workshop.
More information on registration, the programme, and participation options is available at:
https://liberatediversity.org/lld-forum-luxembourg-2025/
Right to Food Initiative accepted by the EU Commission!
👉 Explore the official ECI page
👉 Find your language version on Good Food For All’s website (with more being added)
- Spread the word: forward this email, share our posts, tell your networks.
- Connect us to local allies: NGOs, unions, activists, municipal governments.
- Volunteer: help us translate, coordinate, or organize national meetings.
- Fund this effort: we are still building the resources needed for a truly pan-European push.
No one should go hungry.
No one should be left out.
Food is a right — not a commodity.
New Agroecology Digest, June 2025
The June 2025 edition of the FAO’s Agroecology Knowledge Hub’s journal has been published.
This month’s issue explores the urgent need to transition food systems away from fossil fuels, highlighting pathways toward energy-smart, agroecological alternatives through timely reports, thought-provoking webinars, and the “Fuel to Fork” podcast from IPES-Food.
Also in this issue:
- Stories from the ground—from community-led trainings in Asia to women’s leadership in Africa
- New research and policy updates on climate resilience, sustainable inputs, and farmer networks
- Fresh multimedia—from rice-duck farming video to agroecology podcasts in action
You can find a copy of the journal attached to this post. Enjoy the read!
ETC & GRAIN report on corporate concentration
Building ETC’s 2022 ‘Food Barons’, GRAIN and ETC have released an updated report on the state of corporate concentration in food and farming in 2025.
Key findings from the 2025 ETC and Grain report ‘Top 10 Agribusiness giants’ (Image source: grain.org, 2025).
The report examines six sectors – commercial seeds, pesticides, synthetic fertilisers, farm machinery, animal pharmaceuticals and livestock genetics – and finds consolidation of corporate power has increased across all of them.
The report warns about the dangers of this consolidation, from lobbying politicians and influencing market prices, to disrupting scientific research.
Access the report here: https://grain.org/en/article/7284
Support the Peliti Seed Bank
The Peliti Seed Bank in Masachori (Greece) has has been keeping the flame of traditional agriculture, self-sufficiency and the freedom of seeds burning.
The Peliti Seed Bank is not just a building; it is community of people who protect the land and out food and a refuge of memory, resistance and hope. It is locals’ legacy for future generations.
Today, the Seed Bank needs 40,000 euros to continue its work.
The seed bank is not just asking for donations. They are asking for people’s support in a fight that concerns us all. For the right to cultivate, sow, save and share.
Together we can all succeed. Share the message and support the Peliti Seed Bank in your own way.
You can support the organisation financially through their GoFundMe here: https://gogetfunding.com/we-support-the-peliti-seed-bank/
Norwegian Parliament changes to GMO laws seen as positive
On 26 May, the Norwegian Parliament adopted changes to the Gene Technology Act. Aina Bartmann, head of GMO Network Norway, has welcomed this outcome as largely positive for those concerned about the health and environmental impacts of GMOs.
The revised law maintains key principles: all GMOs, including gene-edited ones, will be assessed case by case, with requirements for risk assessment, traceability, and labelling. Sustainability, ethics, and societal benefit remain central.
The right to choose GMO-free options is preserved, and the law’s purpose—preventing harm to health and the environment while supporting sustainable development—remains unchanged.
However, if the EU redefines GMOs to exclude products of new genomic techniques (NGTs), Norway must align due to its membership in the European Economic Area (EEA).
Reference article: https://gmwatch.org/en/106-news/latest-news/20554
Defend farmers’ seed rights – reach out to EU lawmakers!
EU Commission’s PRM law – a threat to seed diversity and sovereignty
The European Commission’s proposed EU law of Production and Marketing of Plant Reproductive Material is a threat to small seed producers, and to the conservation of seed diversity.
If the proposed seed law is passed, the effects of small seed producers and fruit tree nurseries across the EU will be devastating. This will have important consequences for farming and agriculture in the EU as well as agrobiodiversity, as these producers and nurseries offer a greater diversity of crops and varieties than large companies.
For more information, read more ARCHE NOAH’s recent report here: https://www.arche-noah.at/media/bureaucracy_against_biodiversity_report_may_2025_3.pdf
ARCHE NOAH Report: Bureaucracy against biodiversity
EU Agriculture Ministers meeting – reach out to your minister
The European Parliament has not yet endorsed the EC’s proposed law. On 23 and 24 June EU agriculture ministers will be meeting to discuss the proposed law. Reach out to your country’s minister and ask them to speak up for farmers’ rights and biodiversity.
- Please reach out to your minister to ask to speak up for free conservation work without seed
A leaked version of the Polish government’s position on the proposed seed law would ban farmers from informal seed exchanges.
marketing restrictions. You can use ARCHE NOAH’s briefing on good practices in the current seed marketing laws in the different EU member states when it comes to exempting conservation work from the seed marketing rules. You can the briefing attached in this post here: Good practice example for Agriculture Ministers
- Please continue to reach out to the responsible civil servants and ask them to protect conservation work from overregulation. Mention that all transfers for the aim of conservation should be put outside the scope, as many different actors are needed for successful conservation work next to conservation organisations (farmers, seed libraries, schools, individual seed savers/producers, …)
- Raise media awareness! Share this post and ARCHE NOAH’s ‘Raise Our Forks’ campaign on your social media and networks, and encourage conversations.
“RAISE OUR FORKS – FOR DIVERSITY!”
Support ARCHE NOAH’s campaign calling on EU lawmakers to protect farmers’ rights to keep, use and exchange seed material and defend seed diversity in Europe. Read and sign their petition here: https://mitmachen.arche-noah.at/en/raise-our-forks
Support ARCHE NOAH’s ‘Raise our forks for diversity’ petition. (Image credit: Arche Noah)
Seed legislation, seed marketing, advocacy, seed systems, scientific publication, school and seminar, patents
Agrobiodiversity, seed savers, seed networks
Plant breeding, LLD Forum, news from members, news from other organizations
– SEEDS STORIES –
DO YOU WANT TO STAY UPDATED??
The ECLLD - News! informs about events, ongoing projects and insights regarding cultivated biodiversity at European level.
We are very pleased with your interest in our challenges, our diversity is our strength!
-COMMON CALENDAR –
On Schedule
EC-LLD! General Assembly (for EC-LLD! members only)Field Visits
- On Schedule
Official opening of the ForumField Visits
- On Schedule
WS1: Seeds, Biodiversity and the Right to Food: The Role of Municipal Food Policies
- On Schedule
WS 2: Seeds in Common: Genebanks, Breeding Innovation, and the Future of Democratic Seed Systems
- On Schedule
WS 3: On-farm agrobiodiversity in the Balkan region: from preservation to plant population development
Submit an Event
Legal Watch
The legal watch is realised by the French Farmers’ seeds network, Réseau Semences Paysannes. Informations are related to seeds marketing, intellectual property rights, genetic ressources.
It is presented in French.
on EU topics
- Plateforme ACLP, Communiqué du 27 février 2025 - L’ACLP participe à la table ronde sur la propriété intellectuelle et les semences au Salon international de l’agriculture de Paris 2025
- Convention sur la diversité biologique, Communiqué du 24 février 2025, Le Fonds de Cali est lancé en marge de la reprise de la session de la COP16
- OMPI, Communiqué du 5 décembre 2024 - Le Malawi est le premier pays à ratifier le Traité de l’OMPI sur la propriété intellectuelle, les ressources génétiques et les savoirs traditionnels associés
- Confédération suisse, Avis du Conseil fédéral sur le rapport de la CSEC-N relatif à la prolongation du moratoire sur le génie génétique, 29 janvier 2025
- ACLP, Communiqué du 5 février 2025 - L’ACLP organise une session d’information pour les décideurs politiques de l’UE
