This year in the Netherlands will be a technical conference of sorts, called OHM2013. I will attend in order to give a presentation entitled Open Source Food. 3000 tickets are up for sale at €180 each, for a 4 day event. In that time a piece of agricultural land in a remote place in the Netherlands will be transformed into a city powered by diesel generators. Each of those lucky 3000 ticket holders will have purchased the right to be volunteers, and will help set up tents and stages, provide ‘content’ like presentations, cook food and so on. Space for camping will be provided.
The event has it’s roots with a group of computer hackers and a Dutch language magazine published in the 1980s and 90s called Hacktic. The event has become an ‘every 4th year’ tradition, started with the Galactic Hacker Party in 1989. It has evolved in recent years to include free thinkers in almost every field. One of the most striking thing about this event is the level of intelligence many of the participants have. It’s truly a place to go to talk with intelligent people, with expertise you never thought existed.
I was at the first event in 1989, and some of the ones that followed years later. I have not been in 12 years now, so it’ll be interesting to see how it’s changed. I’m told that together with the other presentations, my presentation will be streamed live on the Internet and available for viewing afterwords. I’ll post more information as I have it.
Update 17 July: The program is now online.
Do you know if there will be a seed exchange at OHM?
Hi Borderer,
Unless you and I both bring seeds and exchange them, I don’t think there will be a seed exchange at OHM. 😉
I plan to talk about Seedsavers NL.
While I think all seed exchanges are great, my experience is that unless the seed exchanges take place within an organization or closed event, they don’t work very well. This is because a typical seed saving gardener will not have enough seeds to give away to so many people, who aren’t also offering seeds. When you give seeds away to people who are not serious seedsavers themselves, the rate of the seeds actually being planted and successfully re-saved and re-offered is very low, probably less than 1%.
It works much better when you exchange seeds among garden friends or members of a seed saving organization.