For a long time I wondered about the most beautiful profession in the world.
When I was told about Vandana Shyva, the protector of the peasant world in India, I finally had my answer.
The peasant feeds us by respecting the land and maintaining the balance and sustainability of the biodiversity of which we are part. He helps to ensure the future of the different species on this earth for generations to come. And that future also lies in a seed.
A few months later, I went to India, then Indonesia and the Philippines. There I started to collect good, natural and reproducible peasants’ seeds with high nutritional value and good genetic heritage. Peasants from father to son and tribes offered me some.
When I returned to Paris, I offered them to other nature lovers. But this would never have been possible without my customs gardeners at CDG airport. Paradoxically, we are not allowed to transport seeds, even though they cross borders by clinging to living things or flying in the wind.
I was returning from a stopover in Baku (Azerbaijan) in September 2015. I had protected my seed packets in aluminum foil to avoid exposure to radioactivity at altitude. You can imagine the look on the customs officers’ faces when they saw two suitcases full of packets wrapped in foil.
I opened a packet and talked, talked, talked about the agribusiness giants who are trying to take over arable lands, water tables, tribal knowledge and peasants’ seeds. They try to genetically modify seeds through laboratory manipulation and then patent them. Life should never be patented…
These monopolies, heirs to the wars of the 20th century, had converted their old chemical weapons into phytosanitary products: pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides. I mentioned Monsanto, among others. I had forgotten that I risked a complaint, a visit to the police station and a heavy fine.
I spoke with sincerity and passion. I felt I had a mission to protect peasants’ seeds by passing them on to every place I visited on the planet. I trusted in the intelligence of plants and their power of adaptation.
Suddenly, the customs officers spoke up: “We know about Monsanto. We admire what you are doing…”.
I was surprised and reassured when they added: “We are also gardeners and we grow in our garden”.
I was touched by their generosity and kindness. They allowed me to keep all my seeds. I was fascinated by the surprise of fate. The universe had put two guardian angels of nature in my path.
I am still grateful to them today. I cannot name them without their permission, but I will never forget them. They will always be in my memory. They helped me to continue the seed path I started in Asia.
So I dedicate this category of my blog to them. And, at the same time, I dedicate it to those who have walked the same path as me. That of nature’s most precious gift: the seed. But not just any seed; not a genetically modified GMO seed, not an F1 hybrid seed, but a peasant’s seed, which is full of genetic and nutritional richness and travels through time and space.
During my various travels, I have met wonderful people who, like me, grow, harvest and/or collect seeds. Today, they give me various species and varieties to offer to the participants of my workshops and performances. In this category of my blog, I would like to introduce you to my sponsors.
Thank you for allowing me to continue to raise awareness about peasants’ seeds.
Thank you for your valuable work, keep sowing! And to you, dear beautiful plant, I wish you to start sowing if you have not yet done so. When you sow, you are doing much more than growing plants, you are promoting biodiversity in its smallest details and in its gigantic immensity.
Thank you for loving biodiversity!
