For a long time, I wondered about the best job in the world.
When I was told about Vandana Shyva, the protector of the farming world in India, I finally had my answer.
Farmers feed us by respecting the land and maintaining the balance and sustainability of the biodiversity of which we are a part. He is helping 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. It was there that I began to collect good, natural, reproducible peasant seeds with high nutritional value and a good genetic heritage. Farmers from father to son and tribes offered me some.
On my return 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 forbidden to transport seeds, even though they cross borders by clinging to living creatures or flying in the wind.
I was returning from a stopover in Baku (Azerbaijan) in September 2015. I had wrapped my seed packets in aluminium 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 aluminium foil.
I opened a packet and talked, talked, talked about the agri-food giants who are trying to take over arable land, water tables, tribal knowledge and farmers' seeds. They are trying to genetically modify them by manipulating them in laboratories and then patenting them. The living must never be patented...
These monopolies, heirs to the wars of the 20th century, had converted their former 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 farmers' seeds by passing them on to every place I visited on the planet. I had faith in the intelligence of plants and their power to adapt.
Suddenly, the customs officers spoke up: «We know about Monsanto..... We admire what you're doing...».
I was surprised and reassured when they added: «We are also gardeners and we grow crops 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 placed two guardian angels of nature in my path.
I'm still grateful to them today. I can't name them without their permission, but I'll never forget them. They will always be in my memory. They helped me to continue along the path of seeds that I started in Asia.
So I dedicate this category of my blog to them. And, at the same time, I dedicate it to all those who have travelled the same path as I have. 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 farmer's seed, bursting with genetic and nutritional riches and travelling through time and space.
During my various travels, I've met some wonderful people who, like me, grow, harvest and/or collect seeds. Today, they give me various species and varieties to offer to the participants in my workshops and performances. In this category of my blog, I'd like to introduce you to my sponsors.
Thank you for allowing me to continue raising public awareness of farmers' seeds.
Thank you for your precious and invaluable work, keep on sowing! And to you, dear beautiful plant, I wish you to start sowing if you haven't already done so. When you sow, you're doing much more than growing plants, you're promoting biodiversity in all its minutiae and gigantic immensity.
Thank you for loving biodiversity.
