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Traditional Greek Sesame Seed Harvest

Unless your Greek is a lot better than mine, you probably won’t understand what’s spoken, but these are still fascinating videos of a traditional Greek sesame seed harvest.

The seed pods on sesame plants suddenly open and throw their seeds when they mature, so in order to harvest the seeds you have to, well, do what these guys are doing. This is where the expression ‘Open Sesame’ comes from.

In these videos they leave the plants to dry for 8 days each in two different kinds of stacks. In the Greek climate, they sow seeds between 20 May and 10 June, and the harvest is between 15 August to 15 September.

Thanks to Mary who provided the links and translations of the details above.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

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Brussels Action 17-18 April 2011 — The Message

With our tractor in the lead, on Monday the 18th we marched!

In addition to the demonstration on Monday, there were workshops on Sunday with equally compelling messages.

Olivier de Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, gave his message in a video. His position is clear. The European seed laws are a violation of human rights.

Representatives of Turkey and India spoke about the problems they have in their countries because of European seed laws.  However bad it might be for us here in Europe, it can be far worse for people living in other countries.

Please, no matter where in the world you live, make your voice heard on the new EU seed laws!

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Brussels Action 17-18 April 2011 — Food, Wine and Song

One of the fantastic things about getting a group of people like this together, was all the great food!

The evening before, when most people coming from out of town were arriving, they held a potluck dinner.  Can you imagine, seed savers coming from all over Europe, bringing with them things from their own gardens or local markets?  Since people were arriving over the course of the evening, dishes kept getting added to the buffet, so it was possible to go back every hour or so for more…  Many people brought local breads and cheeses.  A number of farmers were present, and some meats were on offer that looked very home made.

The day of the seed swap vegetarian meals were provided by „popular kitchen” of the „collectif du 123”.  It was really nice!

When the seed swap and workshops were over, day turned to evening and the music started.  The organic drinks came out, and the celebration began.  This band played salsa and world music:

On the day of the demonstration itself, great sandwiches were served for lunch and during the march we had a little impromptu music…

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The European food industry spend €1-billion to avoid traffic labelling

Here’s an answer to the questions I asked in my last post about EU food labelling.  The food industry won, it’s EU wide and voluntary meaning we will only see it on foods they want to teach us to eat.  Together with infomercials on news sites, we are to be taught how to be food consumers of the future.

My advice?  Avoid all foods with the new label.  Choose foods without health claims, and of natural origin.