SeedBroadcasting at the Tri-County Farmers' Market in Las Vegas, New Mexico

Join us in Las Vegas, New Mexico for a celebration of Local Seeds = Local Food!

 

SeedBroadcast is partnering up with the Tri-County Farmers' Market in Las Vegas, New Mexico to celebrate local seeds, food, and the unwavering efforts of local farmers.

Bring your seeds to swap, and join us for seed story shout-outs, seeds and local food

June 8, 2013
8am - Noon
Local Seeds // Local Food
Tri-County Farmers' Market
6th and University
Las Vegas, NM

This event is hosted by the Tri-County Farmers' Market!

Global March Against Monsanto, Santa Fe, New Mexico!

March against Monsanto, Santa Fe, New Mexico. May 25th 2013

Saturday May 25th, 2013 "March Against Monsanto"http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/ saw the world speaking out and the voices were loud and clear!  Over two million people joined global protests against seed giant Monsanto and the genetically modified food it produces. The protests were held in 52 countries and 436 cities, including Santa Fe, New Mexico, to make a stand and shout out for rights to the freedom of our seeds,  the freedom for farmers, our food supply and for the food revolution !

 

Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station at the Santa Fe Farmers Market

 The Santa Fe rally was tirelessly lead by Candace Apodaca with the help of social media. "I could not have done this without Facebook", she told us as she was running from sorting the audio equipment, to locating the fog horn and corralling the local speakers. The crowds of families, farmers, poets, musicians, filmmakers, seed-lovers and concerned citizens gathered early at the Santa Fe Farmers Market in the Railyard district, where the event was opened by an invocation and prayer. Many local guests powerfully spoke out with song, poetry and wise words of encouragement and celebration.

March against Monsanto from the Santa Fe Farmers Market to the New Mexico State Capital as seen from the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station.

The rally grew steadily throughout the morning and at least a 1,000 strong marched peacefully to the State Capital where the afternoon continued to gain community momentum and collective spirit through the very act of voicing opinions.  Many people stopped by SeedBroadcast to share their concerns for their food supply, for the future of our world and spoke freely of a burning desire to see and feel change.

Some of the signs displayed at the New Mexico State Capital

In amongst the energy and determined voices John Simmons and his children were quietly sharing their love of seeds.  John lovingly carried his magic bag full of scarlet runner beans, (his favorite seeds), pinto beans and a Hopi corn that was entrusted to him many years ago.  John has continued to grow this special variety of corn in his garden and at the Monte Del Sol school garden that he tends along with the students. He found a quiet spot in the Capital gardens opened his bag and in the spirit of generosity shared his seed wealth. What a reciprocity our seed sharing wisdom brings but what a radical act it has become!

Chalo Wells, who had driven non stop from Los Angeles to get to the rally in Santa Fe, took time out  to share his thoughts about seed saving as a cultural practice. This was one powerful day but one day is not enough.  Many wonderful connections were made but we need to continue the discourse, we need to continue to find ways to speak out, to be heard and to keep this movement growing.  Lets keep ourselves informed at a local level,  help out in the community gardens, form a neighborhood garden by removing fences and walls, share resources and continue to save and share your open pollinated seeds.  Perhaps inspire others by sharing your seed story at http://seedbroadcast.wufoo.com/forms/z7x3x5/ or create a circle of seeds http://seedfreedom.in/. 

CIRCLES OF SEEDS

A Circle of Seeds is a very simple idea:

It is to gather a group of friends or neighbours,

each of whom commits to grow and save seeds from one or more crops.

Each member selects a crop variety

 and takes on to sow, tend, harvest, clean, dry and store its seeds.

At the meetings everyone shares their seeds

and the information they have on the variety chosen.

Just imagine…

If the Circle has 12 people

and each person chooses a variety,

after one year, the Circle’s seed bank will contain seeds from 12 varieties.

The following year, each person chooses another variety

and now there are 24 varieties.

After 5 years…

AIM OF THIS PROJECT

 To create a network of Circles of Seeds throughout the country to

Rediscover, Gather and Share

our national heritage of ancient and traditional seed varieties.

In solidarity!

SeedBroadcasting at SEEDS: A Collective Voice

Seedbroadcast partnered up with SEEDS: A Collective Voice during their opening festivities on May 4th, at the Downtown Contemporary Gallery in Albuquerque, New Mexico to share seedy resources, network local seed actions, and shout out seed stories from around the country. These stories echoed up and down 4th Street, while passers-by stopped in to check out the Broadcasting Station and share their stories.

 This exhibition will continue through June 8th. Check it out!

Marijke de Vries visited us outside the gallery and shared her seed story. 

Street-side SeedBroadcasting with SEEDS: A Collective Voice, visitors and performers.

Local seed saver and forager Peter Callen brought native seeds to the exhibition and had this wisdom to share, [Why do you share seeds?] "It's part of life to share life and give it away, because that is what the plants do."

Inside the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station

The exhibition festivities celebrated the work of many artists, poets, writers, performers, farmers, gardeners, activists and most importantly the seeds that have brought us all together. The gallery was packed with people, art, conversation, and performance. While milkweed seed floated through the air, presentations were underway to share information and rouse the creative compassion and agency in everyone.

Man's Research?, by artist Gene McClain, acrylic, wood carving.

Local farmer and activist Isaura Andaluz discussed the growing concern over chile in New Mexico and the political and corporate pressures to homogenize, industrialize, and genetically modify historic land races, threatening the deep rooted agricultural practices and culture of these lands.  Bubble maps documenting the relationships between multinational corporations and seeds were distributed sharing a sad truth, that almost all seed, agriculture, and food is not controlled by the 99%. Instead, it is controlled through the patent, power and greed of a handful of corporations. Read Seed Freedom, Who Own's the Seed? for more information.

Who Own's the Seed?

Albuquerque farmers Mimi and Sean Ludden of Nepantla Farms were also busy talking to visitors about organizing a local seed cooperative and conversations emerged about joining forces to organize a living seed library. If you or any one you know is interested in this, contact Sean and Mimi and join Albuquerque seed solidarity: nepantlafarms@yahoo.com

Christian Leahy reading "A Seed Cycle"

A gourd rattles, rattles, rattles.....signally another live performance of voices and words, of the poetic story-tellers transforming critical compassion, anger, and beauty in all present. What does this listening build? Are these the stories of the seeds we try so hard to hear? Listen...

Artist and farmer, Amanda Rich from Erda Gardens performs "Amaranth (everlasting), while accompanied by semillaista friends.

Albuquerque poet Mary Oishi reads her poem "When I sing of seeds"

Santa Fe based writer and activist, Christian Leahy performs her story poem, "A Seed Cycle" in five parts

Albuquerque Poet Laureate, Hakim Bellamy performs his new work "Food Sovereignty" and also shared the text for everyone to read.

Food Sovereignty – by hakim bellamy

She said
What if the scientist stuck to science
And let the farmers stick to farming

It’s not rocket science

Global agriculture has changed more in our lifetime
Than the previous 10,000 years

Went from
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
To if it works
Whip it into working harder

When the sun
Doesn’t rise fast enough for us
Will we tinker with that?

Will we surrender our Eden
To the machine
Look God in the eye
Point to the third day and say
“Not good enough”
Will we piss in the same pond
We’ve evolved from
Will we turn our back
On the mud in our veins

It’s not rocket science

The chemist are covering the spread
bruising silos with fruit sky high
You think the pesticides are expensive?
Imagine the plane
Gotta push a hell of a lot more acres
To cover the gas bill that gets that thing in the sky

It’s not rocket science

Even the fairy tales prosthelytized
Jack and the Beanstalk was so obviously
Corporate, that they didn’t try to hide it
In the beginning of the story he put three seeds in his pocket
And by the end he turns a profit

It’s surprisingly not surprising
That there is no problem with how he got it
In a country founded on deception and robbery

And there’s NO WAY
A beanstalk gets THAT big without GMO coursing through its body
That’s like watching Major League Baseball
And pretending there is no difference between 1999
And 2005 Jason Giambi

But the script gets flipped
To mess with our conscious
Of course, Jack is hungry and poor
So he’s just like us

Stole the tall man’s gold
And tricked his wife into liking him

Made Jack the bad guy
Even though the beans were free
And the stalk was on his property

But Jack still wins a happy ever after
Though we all know fairy tales aren’t reality

In the end,
The corporation is still giant
And Jack can’t have no beenstalk without’em

It’s not rocket science

They say money doesn’t grow on trees
But there are plenty of companies pumping it into the ground
“Food chain” will get a whole new meaning
As soon as they figure that out

Chemicals invented for world wars
Have no business in our bodies
Fertilizing killing fields with bullshit
Will only yield a barren garden

I suppose it makes perfect sense
If the idea is to wage war on our biology

Monocrop all biodiversity
Til every seed is eugenically perfect
And leave the farming to the Nazis

It’s not rocket science

Putting dope into the soil
Makes the land an addict
Now Mother Earth can’t function without it
While just a few years ago
She used to make miracles out of scratch for our parents.

Years ago our country abolished the ability of rich people to own farmers
But they didn’t want to share crops
So they pulled all the stops
Traded slave for patent holding, full well knowing
That they will always “own” farmers
As long as they can own their seeds

It’s not rocket science

We cannot eat coffee,
Super Insects or Super Weeds

Our crops have become a courtroom
And the lawyers are woefully overdressed
For this kind of work

It’s not rocket science

If your coat is a dirtless shade of white
You are not allowed in this field

Here, brown is holy
Here, life is NOT
An experiment
It is reality

Here, is not simply playing God
Here, is tampering with blessings
Here, is not 20,000 feet
Here, is ground
Zero

Here, is both feet
Both knees
Both hands
Both lips
Kiss

It’s not
Rocket
Science.

© Hakim Bellamy May 4th, 2013

Thank you to artist, Jade Leyva and Tom Frouge with Avakado Artists who organized SEEDS: A Collective Voice and to Sharon Berman who volunteered to help SeedBroadcast during this event. 

SeedBroadcast and SEEDS: A Collective Voice

Join us at SEEDS: A Collective Voice! an exhibition of artists, activists, performers, gardeners, and farmers celebrating and interrogating the current state of seeds as a life force for change.

Listen to the Seed Story shout out from exhibition organizer and seed lover, Jade Levya, who talks more about her inspiration for this gathering of seeds, creativity, and sovereignty.

Our Actions Matter, Earth Day at the Albuquerque Biopark

 SeedBroadcast was invited by Tallie Segel, Education Coordinator, at the Albuquerque BioPark  www.cabq.gov/culturalservices/biopark to join the Children's Seed Festival for Earth Day 2013. This "Our Actions Matter" festival was created to celebrate the connections between seeds, plants and human beings through various educational experiences. SeedBroadcast parked the Mobile Seed Story Broadcasting Station at the entrance to the park to encourage families to explore the magic of seeds and seed saving.

Many young inquiring minds stopped to share their curiosity, to hold seeds, to examine them under magnifying lenses, to arrange them, to draw them and to ask questions. Many choose seeds to take home to plant in their gardens and to watch them grow. All we asked was that if the plants produced seeds that they passed them on to their neighbors and friends. Tallie made sure we had volunteers all day to help us interact with the crowds that came to visit. The volunteers adeptly learned the technical ins and outs of the Mobile Unit and quickly became experts at guiding visitors to explore our networking system.

Arranging different seeds.

Two of our wonderful volunteers.

Gabriel, who lived in Puerto Rico until the age of five, was one of our young visitors and shared this hopeful and heart felt story about planting a lemon tree and how this tree inspired him to help others to have access to healthy food. Here is Gabriel telling his story:
It was not only the children that became inspired, many of their parents, aunts, uncles, sisters and brothers were encouraged also to share stories. Kalonji told us his story of the mysterious tomato seed. During the day we broadcast some of our audio stories over loud speakers that are mounted on the roof of the SeedBroadcast Mobile Unit and we linked live to "Women's Focus" with Carol Boss http://www.kunm.org/programs/genre/news-talk who interviewed Jade Leyva and Isaura Andaluz, both active seed advocates. Jade is an artist, seed saver and organizer of SEEDS: A Collective Voice, an event and exhibition that was held at the Downtown Contemporary Gallery in Albuquerque and continues through June 8th 2103. (Read our upcoming blog for more details). Isaura, a New Mexican, is the inspiration behind Cuatro Puertas, who's mission is to connect New Mexico's urban economies with rural agricultural economies, and she is an activist for the important issues of chile politics in New Mexico. After their interview with Carol they visited us at the BioPark. You can listen to Jade in our previous SeedBroadcast blog and to Isaura talk about her seed saving work and why people should care.
We should all care, and by allowing our children open access to the magic of seeds, we might have a chance.