SOMOS Semilla Seed Library brings education and food sovereignty to the community, strengthening the long-term health of our environment through seed saving. Our work is interconnected to a growing international movement of free seed advocates.
The Challenge
Quality organic seeds adapted to this climate are difficult to find. Worse, important indigenous foods that originated in Mexico centuries ago —such as corn, beans, squash and tomatoes — are endangered by urbanization, mono-cropping and GMOs that contaminate local crops.
We are a pop-up (go-anywhere) community library of locally acclimated seeds. Through the lending seeds that are “returned” by participants —who we call Seed Guardians — the library helps safeguard our local farmers, as well as preserving Mexico’s biodiversity and distinctive culinary heritage.
To date we have
- 100+ local seed guardians, planting, harvesting, donating seeds.
- Held several pop-up seed exchanges in markets and local communities
- Taught multiple workshops on seed conservation
- Designed programming for the 1st Mexican Congress of Seed Savers
- Developed Spanish educational resources