Global Seed Savers

In 2023, Global Seed Savers' key accomplishments included the following: (1) Strengthened our local leadership capacity and welcomed Hal Atienza as our new Philippines Executive Director in April of 2023. (2) Conducted 4 Seed Schools, training 100 new farmers and participants from 4 regions across the Philippines in the history, practice, and hands on of saving seeds. (3) Facilitated Strategic Planning Sessions for our 2 primary Seed Saver Communities, the Benguet Association of Seed Savers and the Cebu Seed Savers. Helping them define their vision and actions for building seed sovereignty in the coming years and sustainability of their organizations. (4) Conducted an all team strategic planning retreat, where we redefined our strategic directions for the next 5 years including our core strategies of: seed self-sufficiency, seed security, and seed justice. (5) Partnership with SourceFit: Facilitated a 1 million Pesos ($17,000 plus USD) contract for the Benguet Association of Seed Savers, to provide 3,000 bags of organic vegetables to SourceFit a Philippine Company to distribute to their partner communities in Metro Manila. (6) Welcomed 2 Filipina-American Post Graduate Fellows from Princeton University to the Philippines for one year. Their primary output will be the production of a documentary film that shares the stories of our partners in building seed sovereignty across the Philippines. (7) Participated in a weeklong policy formation workshop with our partners at Good Food Community and the IBON Foundation. GSSP Team and farmer leaders learned the ins and outs of local policy formation, advocacy, and planning. (8) Conducted an indigenous farmers seed saving learning exchange with our new partners at Salumayag Youth Collective in Bukidnon, Mindanao. Participants exchanged knowledge and traditional methods in local seed production and seed saving practices. (9) Received our largest grant in our history $40,000 from the Conservation Food and Health Foundation to grow our Seed Saver Communities and build more seed libraries across the Philippines in 2024.