The Gaia Foundation

Urban Seed Diversity

Thu 17 March 2022

Tickets no longer available

Beautiful scarlet seed heads curling into someone's hands

Amaranthus seed heads. Photo by Andy Pilsbury.

Cities matter. With the majority of people across the UK and Ireland living in cities, how we grow, distribute and eat food in cities matters.

When we think of seed sovereignty, we rarely think of urban spaces. Yet in the nooks and crannies of cities across the UK (and the world) growers are carefully, diligently saving seed.

These are creative growers, turning tricky soils and squeezed sites into abundant spaces to grow food. Together they are building and nurturing a rich urban seed diversity to meet the culinary and cultural needs of the variety of people and communities which make up urban life.

What are the challenges and opportunities of saving seed in cities? What networks and communities have formed around seed in UK cities? How might attention to seed (and their savers) enrich urban life?

Join us for an evening to explore these questions together. We’ll open with a short film by Andy Pilsbury on urban seed networks in London to frame our discussion before talking with Rowan Lear (Glasgow Seed Library), Dee Woods (Granville Community Kitchen) and Richard Galpin (London Freedom Seed Bank). It will be an informal conversation with lots of room for questions so please come ready to ask.