Bangalore produces over 2000 to 3000 tonnes of waste everyday. The centralized government composting plant can handle only 500 tonnes per day. The rest reaches dumps that are illegal.

In just five years the Daily Dump team has helped over 4,500 customers in Bengaluru to compost household waste in terracotta pots, and these customers keep around 5,522kg of organic waste out of landfills every day. What is remarkable about Poonam Bir Kasturi’s waste management process is its simplicity, and the cleverly designed terracotta pots add a touch of earthiness to it.

Poonam Bir Kasturi with her terracotta pots.

Bengaluru’s Poonam Bir Kasturi, a former student of the National Institute of Design, has one obsession: that of managing kitchen waste. She is the brain behind Daily Dump, that turns our daily garbage into nutrient waste. Since waste management is not “sexy enough” for most people, she has designed attractive and innovative terracotta pots in which the waste can be managed.

See the article about Poonam here.

See the Daily Dump website here.

Neighbourhood composting on the streets of India

Composting for apartments/flats in India

Composting at home in India

“Here in the city, our satisfaction is the aesthetic effect of the gardens and our access to fresh vegetables,” he said.

By Paul M. Icamina
Malaya Business Insight
Jan 2012

Excerpt:

There are a lot of other vacant spaces in the 130-hectare subdivision all waiting to be found by urban farmers.

“I heard lately that the city government is interested in developing similar community gardens,” Reyes said.

For this season, the Luxemburg farmers plant mustard, coriander and Chinese pechay in four vacant lots, ranging in area from 500-2,000 square meters.

Two plots of chili, some ampalaya, cucumber and papaya were planted but were flooded; probably next planting season. They are also looking at sweet potatoes.

“The vegetables are harvested in 30 days, with a fast turnover from seeding to harvest,” Reyes said. “The four vacant lots are enough to supply the vegetable needs of Luxemburg Circle, with surplus to spare.”

The bulk of the produce is bought by vegetable vendors from the public markets of Pasay City and San Agustin in Paranaque.

Read the complete article here.

In the middle of rapidly urbanizing Hanoi, Tran Nguyen Bo, a 70 year old man from Ngoc Ha Ward in Ba Dinh District, uses an 800 square meter garden to plant daisy flowers for earning his family’s living, following his ancestors’ work.

Tuoitrenews
January 12, 2012

Excerpts:

Sandwiched between tall buildings in a long, curvy and tiny alley of Hanoi, Bo’s small house was built in 1985 and is the only one-storey house remaining there. At the back is the green garden with fresh buds of daisies ready for the Tet holiday.

“This year winter started late, thus our crop was late as well,” Lien, Bo’s wife said while using newspaper to wrap daisy plants to be delivered to the night market.

While Thanh spends most of his time tending the garden, his mother Lien takes care of selling the plants. Every day she packs the daisies into boxes, with one hundred plants in each, and sells them at VND10,000 (50 US cent) each at Quang Ba night market, which is open from 11 pm till 4 am.

Big orders usually come from their regular customers from nearby flower villages such as Nhat Tan in Tay Ho District, Tay Tuu in Tu Liem District, Me Linh District; and even from other northern provinces like Quang Ninh, Bac Ninh and Hai Duong. According to Thanh, these sales can be over 10,000 flowers some days.

Read the complete article here.

Black and white truffles are the world’s most expensive foods, and they are coveted by chefs and criminals alike.

By John Platt
Mother Nature Network
Jan 09 2012

Excerpt:

Truffles are “being trafficked like drugs, stolen by thugs, and threatened by inferior imports from China,” said correspondent Lesley Stahl on the program that aired Jan. 8.

Black truffles from France cost more than $1,000 a pound. Italian white truffles are even more valuable, bringing in around $3,600 a pound. The price represents not only their rarity but how difficult they are to find, as well as how much haute cuisine diners are willing to pay for just a few truffle shavings on their pasta or burgers.

Truffles grow underground and are usually discovered by the finely tuned noses of trained dogs. (Truffle hunters used to employ pigs for the same task, but the pigs tended to eat their finds, cutting down on profits.) Attempts to cultivate them have not been successful, as the truffles’ taste comes from the unique soil and climate of France and Italy.

Read the complete article here.

See the video here.

See the CBS News story here.

2 Photos by Patrick Coswill

Taipei, Taiwan. Photo by Patrick Coswill.

Link here.

The idea of promoting medicinal herbs of the Himalayan Mountains – the project’s goal was to educate the younger population of the uses of plants in the region.

By Shreya Thapa
Republica
2011-12-21

Excerpt:

“The Promoting Herbal Gardens in Schools has been a fun-filled learning activity for the children where they got the opportunity to learn about the medicinal plants by actually planting the medicinal herbs and watching them grow in their garden, and by exploring information about them from various sources. The task of making the garden itself has been enriching in terms of making children realize the importance of team work such as detailed planning, and allocation of tasks within a team.”

But beyond just benefiting the students, the teachers too have been able to gain from the gardens, as ICIMOD reports, “For the teachers, herbal garden project has been useful in terms of the ease with which they could integrate the concept with other activities, such as writing essays, poems and stories, making posters, drawing and painting, making herbariums, and even preparing food recipe using some of the culinary herbs students have planted in their gardens.”

Originating with the idea of promoting medicinal herbs of the Himalayan Mountains, the project’s goal was to educate the younger population of the uses of plants in the region. And there is good reason to promote these herbs as “these plants have been grown or collected for thousands of years, and the traditional knowledge about the plants and their uses have been come down by word of mouth from generation to generation.”

Read the complete article here.

“Moving to the cities, we are told not to grow vegetables, not to raise chickens in the community, not to leave things in the corridors, and so on and so forth because these habits may annoy our neighbors. But it’s not that easy to change.”

By Liu Yujie
China Daily
2011-12-18

Excerpt:

Zhang Guichun, a 55-year-old Beijinger, has astonished the local community with his organic “hanging garden” on the roof of his traditional courtyard home north of Tian Tan, or the Temple of Heaven in southern Beijing.

“Even if we don’t have enough land in the city, agriculture can go vertical, up to roof and balcony,” Zhang notes.

Zhang, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, began creating his “hanging garden” five years ago, and now it is home to some 30 kinds of vegetables and fruit, including tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet bell peppers, melons and watermelons – all enough to feed his family.

For Zhang, the rooftop project translates to tangible benefits, such as safe, nutritious vegetables, a cooler home in summer, fewer mosquitoes (thanks to the tomatoes, which are natural insect repellents) and better bonding with neighbors.

“Neighbors enjoy dropping by for a relaxing chat or just to see how well the lovely vegetables and fruit are doing.”

People like Zhang are still rare. The greening of roof space with vegetables and fruit takes skill and energy.

Read the complete article here.

Urban Farm Urban Barn – Return Farming to the City

Holcim Awards Silver 2011 Asia Pacific
Isavaret Tamonut, TTH Trading Co., Ltd, Thailand
March 2012

Project description
Located in a mixed use urban zone in central Bangkok, the Urban Farm Urban Barn aims to return green areas to the booming city. A former textile factory and abandoned farmland on an adjacent block shall be transformed into a 1.4ha agricultural production site and retail outlet. The atrophying rural economy is reactivated in the context of modern urbanity, and elaborated in a remarkable way. The factory building is converted into an eco-supermarket, additional buildings, such as a restaurant and marketplace are integrated into the crop production by becoming agricultural structures themselves.

Crops and their sequences are carefully selected and balanced, aiming to maximize harvest without exploiting the resources, while providing a habitat for local fauna. In a larger context, this concept aims to counterbalance the ongoing spatial separation of food production and consumption. A number of such units are intended to be established in the metropolitan area, reintroducing elements of self-sufficiency and reconnecting food production and consumption.

See the complete project design here.

At present, 75% of occupying families have been gaining benefits from the Family Business Garden

By Thilak T. Ranasinghe, PhD.
Consultant/Advisor for Urban Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods

Excerpt:

Technology Adoption: – It is great that residents adopted new crop cultivations, creation of live-vertical-cultivation-structures, and use of artificial shade during drought periods and soil improvement methodologies in the process of technology adoption. Micro-irrigation demonstrations were conducted so as to reduce water bills and also production costs. The adoption levels were high although majority of the residents were strangers to scientific agriculture or if not for any form of micro-agriculture.

By now homesteaders diversified their homesteads with red onions, neera-leeks and chilies although the present scale of nice market is being reduced due to less number of Chinese in the area. The entrance to quails rearing through vertical manner was somewhat small in scale but effective in generating incomes. Presently some residents converted their vertical cages in rearing chickens for eggs. After the project termination, Departments of Agriculture and Animal Production and Health support for such crop diversification strategies to sustain Family Business Gardens along with the Government development programme namely “Divi Neguma” – Upgrading the Living.

Read the complete paper here.

Learn how to farm in Hong Kong on the rooftop of an old factory building

By Hiufu Wong
CNN Go
15 November, 2011

Excerpt:

Project Grow is a city garden located on the rooftop of a building in one of Hong Kong’s underdog neighborhoods — To Kwa Wan.

Before the 1960s, To Kwa Wan was mainly a light-industries area overshadowed by the adjacent neighborhoods of Hung Hom and Kowloon City. Today, the community is mainly made up of elderly and new immigrants living in affordable but fast deteriorating property.

“To Kwa Wan is an old neighborhood — the residents are attached to the place but it is losing its energy,” said environmentalist Pad Chu. “We are just making our tiniest effort to rejuvenate the community again.”

Chu established The Organic Farm 17 years ago and now also operates food store Simply Organic.

To set up Hong Kong’s first rooftop urban garden for the To Kwa Wan community, Chu teamed up with the Film Culture Club (HK) (HKFCC) and an up-cycling design group called re:ply Workshop.

Read the complete article here.

“The importance and requirement for urban agriculture will only grow in the coming years as transportation costs keep increasing,” says AK Das, senior assistant director, National Horticulture Board.

By Nidhi Nath Srinivas and Pk Krishna Kumar
Economic Times India
18 Nov. 2011

Excerpt:

NEW DELHI | KOCHI: Delhi-based homemaker Shaifali Chikermane had had enough of vegetables laced with deadly chemicals and deceptive sheen. So she decided to take matters into her own hands. Literally so, because just a few months later she has a spread of 25 pots with garlic, onion, green spinach, red spinach, peas, cauliflower, chillies, ginger and herbs growing on the terrace of her 800 sq ft flat.

Chikermane belongs to an expanding tribe of city dwellers across the country who have taken to growing vegetables and reducing dependence on the marketplace. These urban farmers are using every inch of available space for growing fresh vegetables that are salubrious for household budgets as well, especially in these times of raging food inflation.

“Influenced by a friend who does organic farming, I started by making compost out of raw fruit, vegetables, paper and hay in a water bucket,” says Chikermane, 39. “Within three weeks, I had my compost. Carrying the large pots up four floors was a challenge, but I saw it as part of the game.”

Read the complete article here.

How will South Asia cities be fed?

By Kranti Prakash
Bihar, India
Email: kranti_prakash@hotmail.com

How will South Asia cities be fed? – Is an important question demanding attention due to rapidly growing urban population of the sub-continent. Urban and peri-urban organic agriculture is one set of activities resulting in grater food production, improved livelihood opportunities for urbanites and the enhanced environmental qualities of cities. During last decade in south Asian countries people have been experiencing rural growth rate of 17% but urban growth rate of 30% more than 6 thousand cities are in South Asia. Nearly 50000 villages have merged into cities due to urbanization. Millions of farmers had to abandon their age old practice of farming. Prices of fruits and vegetables are growing manifold.

In term of a comprehensive, citizen-driven approach to agriculture in an urban setting, the example of Mumbai stands out first and foremost in India. Perhaps due to the fact that it is the most highly urbanised “concrete jungle” of the sub-continent combined with a lack of space for waste disposal the right type of environment has emerged for the creative cultivation of plants and waste reduction through compost development in a dense urban environment. Some of the key actors of Mumbai in UA – particularly Dr. R.T. Doshi and Kisan Mehta of Prakruti – will be introduced later in this report. The most comprehensive scholarly study of UA with respect to a specific Indian metropolis concerns the forward-looking policies and experiments undertaken in Commissioner. The city is known for progressive UA policies with respect to urban horticulture, forestry and solid waste initiatives.

There is a great deal of information on a few key areas of UA in India, particularly composting, which consists of aerobic composting and vermicomposting (i.e. using worms) and the cultivation of the worms themselves (vermiculture), horticulture and aquaculture. Calcutta is known internationally for urban and peri-urban waste fed aquaculture in the extensive wetland areas near the city. These areas are under threat of redevelopment which, depending on the outcome, may have serious repercussions for food-security, livelihoods, waste management and environmental quality in the Primate City of West Bengal. Since the advances in dairying in peri-urban areas have made international headlines over the past several years and are therefore quite well documented, this report simply highlights some of the main case studies and literature related to that topic.

Comparatively less is known about animal husbandry, apart from dairying, in urban and peri-urban areas of India. Certainly, the raising of livestock in cities of the subcontinent is a well-known fact but little appears to be associated with the mainstream literature on UA. I have included relevant examples and contact persons in these sub-sections.

Finally, a section entitled “other” is a repository of disparate information concerning lesser-explored aspects of UA including sericulture (silkworm rearing), apiculture (bee-keeping and honey production), the raising of medicinal herbs and plants and the cultivation of ornamental plants, trees and shrubs.

Aristotle apparently referred to earthworms as the “intestines of the earth”. Though composting of organic waste can take place without worms, a practice known as aerobic composting the presence of these small creatures – particularly certain varieties – greatly expedites composting and improves the conversion of waste into nutrient-rich soil conditioner. However, there may be hazards associated with worm composting and the added expense may not make the resulting product commercially viable. The development and implementation of both types of composting is well documented in India, and the use of composting has attracted a great deal of attention from those outside the South Asian region.

Bangaluru based Technical Manager Jagdish Shree, whose entry into organic terrace gardening more than two years ago was, well organic! Having set up a rain water harvesting (RWH) system at his independent house in Banashankri. He grows organic vegetables likes beans and carrots. Shri got further impetus to expand his terrace garden experiment! He learnt to make his own terrace garden containers with deal wood (recycled packing material) and a metal frame, that he now uses on his terrace. The initial investment he made for the pots, boxes, compost and said was around Rs. 5000. Now he spends anywhere between Rs. 100-200 every three months. Shri is next looking to make his garden as self-sustaining as possible and minimise the inputs needed from outside such as soil and fertiliser.

He also does not want to increase the water consumption significantly for the garden. He has just started experiementing with growing fruits like guava, pomegranate and sapota. At a personal level, Shri believes his experiment with organic terrace gardening is yielding a lot of insights into a mini eco-system and the time spent in the garden is one of the most relaxing times for him in the day. He usually immerses himself in his garden over weekends and evenings after he returns from work. His wife Vani helps him out with the planning and sowing of seeds, while his four-year-old daughter enjoys the occasional watering of plants if allowed to! His 12-year-old son, on the other hand, is more neutral towards this exercise, says Shri. Here are some pointers from the man himself, for those interested in setting up their own organic terrace garden: Start small with a few pots for vegetables like greens, chillies and tomatoes. Then slowly expand the garden based on your experience and confidence.

• Start small with a few pots for vegetables like greens, chillies and tomatoes. Then slowly expand the garden based on your experience and confidence.

• More importantly – ask yourself what the real purpose of organic gardening is for you – Is it a measure of ROI (cost of inputs to market value of output), value of time spent in the garden versus doing some other ‘productive job’? And what is the purpose of growing the plants – is it to provide us with food, feed the various insects (so called “pests”) to propagate themselves or something else? Shri quotes Woody Tasch, founder of Slow Money (a US-based company): “Each head of broccoli that I grow costs me at least ten times what I could purchase an equivalent head for at the supermarket (or a lower multiple of an equivalent head at the health food store). In terms of economic rationality, my time working in the garden is wasted: I am investing thousands of dollars’ worth of time to produce vegetables with a market value of hundreds of dollars.

To a “ground zero” way of thinking, there is no such thing as an “equivalent” head of broccoli available from any purveyor, and what is incalculably valuable is the satisfaction that comes with the good work that is connected to the land. If it is not rooted in respite from good work, leisure becomes as cheap as the cheap food that makes it possible. If it is fresh, organic, and the product of my own nurturing over a few-month period, then broccoli is something more than just a product to be valued in terms of its market price and the market value of my labour”.

In the National Capital Region (Delhi-NCR), is a good for urban organic farming, because river Yamuna banks and barron land of railways tracks are very useful. Daily use vegetables likes tomato, carrot, cabbage, cauliflower, peas cucumber, chilli, okra, aubergine, pumpkin etc.

www.ChinaCityFarmer.com

Shelley Xu, a visitor to our Compost Garden in Vancouver, looked at some Chinese language websites for information on urban agriculture.

I did some searching on the web and found a Chinese site named “CityFarmer” and some other sources, most of which have information for the public at a grassroots level. Since there’s limited residential space in urban areas, most gardeners utilize their balcony spaces. Community gardens can also be found, and there are some privately owned farms open to the public for recreational/educational visits.

(I love veggie gardens) http://www.52caiyuan.com/

(Happy Farmer) http://kaixinfarmer.com/index.php

RUAF foundation links to a Chinese website where I downloaded and read some of the articles about projects in China. The RUAF has a partnership with the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

There’s one other urban agriculture research institute at Beijing University of Agriculture. In Chinese only.

By Ruel Francisco
Philippine Information Agency
October 25, 2011

CARMONA Cavite, October 25 (PIA) — Thirty farmers from different barangays in this municipality participated in the four-day training on urban agriculture conducted by the municipal agriculture office to equip them with modern methods and techniques.

This is one of the special projects of the local government headed by Mayor Dahlia Loyola and municipal council that will surely provide gainful livelihood for the farmers including out-of-school youth and even retirees, senior citizen in the community.

The training was facilitated by Techgen, a company which specializes in different methods and techniques in every aspect in urban farming.
Municipal Agriculture head, Nenita Ernacio who spearheaded the training thanked Techgen officials for giving the participants additional inputs in urban agriculture. She pointed out that aside from backyard gardening, other potential sites for gardening are schools, vacant lots, and other available lands in every barangays or community.

In a paper titled “Urban Agriculture in the Philippines: Its Beginning and Status” written by Pedito S. Nitural, he mentioned that the term urban agriculture has surfaced in cursory discussions among members of the administrative council of the Cavite State University (CvSU) as early as 1990.

He said that CvSU research and development activities focused on multi-storey farming system with coconut coffee base crops. Because of the limited land area available, the then Don Severino Agricultural College (DASC) opted to develop nursery management for ornamentals, rapid propagation of orchids, greenhouse management of high value crops and vegetables, and the development of native chicken. It may be noted that these are some components of urban agriculture.

Read the paper titled “Urban Agriculture in the Philippines: Its Beginning and Status” written by Pedito S. Nitura here.

In the past quarter of a century, Singapore’s farmlands decreased from 15,000 hectares in the 1960s and 8,000 ha in 1980 to 1,500 ha in 2005.

By Rudy A. Fernandez
The Philippine Star
October 23, 2011

Excerpts:

Urban agriculture can considerably help feed Asia.

This is particularly true in countries, the Philippines included, whose farmlands continue to shrink owing to urbanization, industrialization, and housing needs.

Across Asia, there is now a renewed focus on agriculture, the sector expected and relied upon to provide the food needs of the region’s burgeoning population, said Gil C. Saguiguit Jr. director of the Philippine government-hosted Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization-Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEAMEO SEARCA).

Dr. Saguiguit emphasized: “This new frontier clearly has significant implications for highly populated countries moving toward urbanization. In the end, the combined incremental food produced via urban agriculture could be a buffer should the traditional sources in the rural areas become unreliable.”

Read the complete article here.

“We have a produce of more than 100 litres of milk daily and distribute it not only in this area but also adjoining ones,” says Darogha Yadav, manager of the cattle shed behind Inorbit.

By Rahul Devulapalli
Times of India
Oct 14, 2011

Excerpt:

HYDERABAD: In the backyard of IT hub of Hi-Tec City is another flourishing industry, that of cattle farming. There are an estimated 30 big and small cattle sheds in Madhapur area alone and several more in adjoining areas. The owners, now big realtors and businessmen, are unwilling to use this land for anything else apart from rearing their cows and buffaloes. Owned largely by the local Yadav community, these cattle sheds are almost invisible as they are tucked away from the hustle and bustle of Hi-Tec City.

But sometimes, when a herd of buffaloes sits nonchalantly in the middle of the traffic, one does get the hint of the existence of these pockets located in close quarters.

A stone’s throw away from In Orbit mall, home to Louis Vuittons and Tommy Hilfigers, is one of the largest cattle sheds in the area with over 50 cows lazily munching on grass here. Not too far away is another cattle shed on the main road, rubbing shoulders with electronic goods showroom and high-end apartments. Owners of these sheds maintain that the development spree in this part of Hyderabad did not blind them. “We have never thought of disposing of this land or give it for development. I do not think I would want to leave this in the future as it is more of a tradition than a business for us,” says M Srinivas Yadav, speaking hurriedly as he leaves to tend to the cattle in his shed.

Read the complete article here.

Organization helps urban farmers in Indonesia

The reduction in green spaces in urban areas is not only an issue in Jakarta, but also throughout the world. By leveraging the power of the Internet, Ridwan Kamil and his friends started Indonesia Gardening, a movement to transform abandoned urban land into green land.

Semakin berkurangnya lahan hijau di perkotaan bukan hanya menjadi masalah di Jakarta, tapi juga di seluruh dunia. Dengan memanfaatkan kekuatan Internet, Ridwan Kamil dan kawan-kawan memulai Indonesia Berkebun, sebuah gerakan untuk mengubah lahan telantar kota menjadi lahan hijau.

“Indonesian Gardening is a pilot project. We will create green spaces in the middle of town that provide benefits for surrounding communities. Come grow vegetables and fruits, gardening, and harvesting with friends and family.

See their website here.

Agriculture in Japanese cities is under threat

By Raquel Moreno-Peñaranda
OurWorld 2.0
United Nations University
September 23, 2011

Excerpt:

Japan is quite a unique case when it comes to urban agriculture. Despite being a highly industrialized country, the presence of agricultural land use is a common feature on the urban landscape of cities across the nation. It might come as a surprise that almost one-third of all agricultural output in the country is, in fact, generated by urban agriculture. Likewise, urban farmers account for 25% of farming households in Japan.

Furthermore, Japanese urban agriculture is more productive than its rural counterparts. According to 2010 data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), urban fields are the most productive kind of agriculture in terms of economic value of production per area — 3% more productive than the national average. In terms of revenue per farmer, urban agriculture is two times more profitable than inter-mountainous agriculture and around 10% more so than agriculture in rural plain areas. Even in Tokyo, one of the largest and most congested cities in the world, among the intricate networks of railways, roads, buildings and power wires, local agriculture produces enough vegetables to potentially feed almost 700,000 city dwellers.

Read the complete article here.

Antananarivo produces 90%-100% of the vegetables and 15% to 25% of the rice it consumes each year.

Christine Aubry
INRA press service
21/07/2011

Excerpts:

The capital city of Madagascar, Antananarivo now counts about 2 million inhabitants. Originally built on the top of a hill, the city then spread to neighbouring hills and their slopes before starting to cover the marshland in the valleys during recent decades.

Local agriculture covers nearly 43% of the 425 km² or so of the urban region; although it is present today in the centre of the city, it has long occupied the most flood-prone low-lying areas, the nearby plain and periurban hills. It benefits from a tropical, high-altitude climate (1250-1400 m).

The city benefits from a very broad diversity of production systems. The common features are rice-growing and/or market gardening, and the frequent presence of small livestock units. Market gardening predominates in the hills, alongside small livestock farms raising cattle. The growing of watercress has developed in low-lying areas within the city. Rice predominates on flood plains and other low-lying land.

These production systems form part of the three main types of household occupations, whether these are devoted exclusively to agricultural activities and exploitating their products (direct sale) or land (brick-making), whether at least one member of the family has an external job or whether the farmer himself also has another job.

Read the complete article here.

The Seed Savers’ Network

Bit by bit we have produced 350 video clips and uploaded them to Seed Savers’ Youtube channel. We were inspired by our visits to farmers and gardeners around the world and by Seed Savers’ garden of 1000 food species in Byron Bay, Australia. We show you how we save seeds, grow and process our food; people and produce on markets in several countries and food we glean on our travels.

Welcome to The Seed Savers’ Network of Australia

The Seed Savers’ Network is an Australian-based organisation established in 1986 to preserve local varieties of useful plants. There are more than eighty Local Seed Networks for local gardeners around Australia. We are also active in forty countries so far. See About Us where you will find an overview of our activities, the countries in which we have worked, our story so far with archives of our work and how you can get involved. See also an overview of our Permaculture roots.

Founders, Jude and Michel Fanton, have authored and published three books, best seller “The Seed Savers’ Handbook”with 32000 copies sold with some free text available on www.seedsavers.net, “Local Seed Network Manual” and “Seed to Seed Food Gardens in Schools” and produced a one hour documentary, “Our Seeds” – purchase our publications or film. Our new documentary “Our Roots” that we filmed in Vanuatu for CIRAD the French research institute will be out soon. Please use the resources we offer at no cost to you and without sponsored links.

Film clips from our seed travels. We have filmed and produced hundreds of clips and uploaded them to Seedsavers Youtube channel. Topics include home seed production, unusual varieties of food plants on markets, food production and distribution systems.

See the short clips here.