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Poland: The Festival of Nature and Culture – Stop GMO – Save Traditional Seeds

This weekend (9, 10 and 11 December) there’s a music festival across Poland to promote traditional culture, seeds and plant varieties, and to oppose genetically modified foods.  More than 80 events will take place across the country.

These days of action are being organized by:

ICPPC – International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside,
Międzynarodowa Koalicja dla Ochrony Polskiej Wsi
34-146 Stryszów 156, Poland tel./fax +48 33 8797114
www.icppc.pl  www.gmo.icppc.pl   www.eko-cel.pl

They themselves will also sponsor some awareness raising events in Krakow.

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Your Opinion is NOT Wanted on Agricultural Biodiversity in the EU

The EU is conducting a survey on it’s current program of agricultural biodiversity, and you aren’t invited to participate.  Participation is by invitation only, and a username and password are required.  This program has often been criticized for not allowing sufficient access to farmers organizations and NGOs, or indeed others who have a stake in agricultural biodiversity.

Does anyone not have a stake in agricultural biodiversity?

Anyway, if you feel you have a stake and want your voice to be heard, you might contact them via email at AGRI-RESGEN-SURVEY@ec.europa.eu

A copy of the survey can be found here.

The European Commission, Directorate-General for Agricultural and Rural Development, is carrying out a consultation on the “Community programme on the conservation, characterisation, collection and use of genetic resources in agriculture” to get stakeholders’ views on the Community programme itself and on the topic of agricultural biodiversity in general terms.

You are invited to share your opinion: the questionnaire is addressed to a wide range of targeted representative organisations working at European or International level which are potentially concerned by genetic resources diversity in agriculture:

you will find below a username and a password which enable you to access the questionnaire and submit your answers.

Submit your answers no later than Friday 20th January 2012: after this deadline, the survey will be closed.

The questionnaire can be completed in any official language of the European Union.  However, we would be particularly grateful, if you could complete the consultation in English, as this will considerably facilitates the processing assessment of results under conditions of limited resources.

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Junaluska Apple

Last year around this time I was looking for fruit tree scion wood, and my search led me to the website of Tom Brown in North Carolina in the US.   Even though Tom was willing to cooperate, we quickly discovered the Netherlands doesn’t allow the import of apple tree scion wood from the US without lots of red tape, so the discussion ended.

So much of Tom speaks to what it means to collect and share heirloom and heritage varieties.  Tom not only has a very impressive collection of heritage apples, mostly from the US south, but he’s done everything possible to collect stories and other documentation to go along with them.  The roots of Tom’s interest in his apple collection lie in his childhood and passions as a young man.

Not only has the world lost so many heritage plant varieties over the years, but we’ve lost the passions that go along with growing, documenting and hunting for them.

Tom recently rewrote and reposted the story of how found the Junaluska apple, and sent me a link.  Note too the link on the bottom of the page that leads to the various descriptions of the apple he found.  Many of us grow the Cherokee Trail of Tears beans in our garden each year, and now thanks to Tom a Cherokee apple from that time is also available.

If you live in the US and are looking for an apple tree to grow, consider buying this or others from Tom via his website.

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European Agricultural Ministers to Discuss EU Seed Law Changes

Well known for their their very undemocratic decisions made behind closed doors, ignoring everyone else’s opinion, the EU agriculture ministers will meet Thursday to discuss the EU seed laws.  This time they have invited public input.

In case you were looking at the agenda hoping to find a place and time so you could attend, don’t bother.  You aren’t invited and the meeting will be held in a secret location.  When they’re done, we should be able to read about it here.

They have the power to unilaterally change the EU seed laws, and this may happen at this meeting.