Clearwater Farmers Market held its 13th annual Seedy Saturday last weekend, where those in attendance traded and bought seeds as well as shared information on food security.
“The whole thing about Seedy Saturday is it’s based around the Seeds of Diversity Canada—it actually has a long history. If you go back to the ’80s when (former Prime Minister) Brian Mulroney was in government, he took away the rights of the government to secure seeds for the people,” said Sharon Neufeld, volunteer on the Seedy Saturday committee.
“This is how Seedy Saturday started; he took that away and gave that to industry and that’s the beginning of the GMOs and the seed companies controlling our seeds.”
Members of Seeds of Diversity then took the seeds that were being saved since farmers began growing crops in Canada, and started asking anyone interested to grow them and collect the next generation of seeds from the resulting crops.
Neufeld added the practice of seed preservation used to be inherent to cultural survival before the proliferation of grocery store chains, and organizations like Seeds of Diversity still share the sentiment.
With this in mind, the group began the first Seedy Saturday event in Vancouver in the late 1990s.
“The events now go right across Canada, they usually start in February and are attended by people who grow their seeds for exchange,” added Neufeld.
“There are three parts—they look after plants, seeds and pollinators, because they’re a component of keeping our food security. It’s really about seed security, so they sell them and educate people on how to save them.”
On the topic of pollinators, members of Clearwater’s Bee City Committee were also present at the Seedy Saturday event, teaching people the important roles pollinators play in the environment as well as food production.
Clearwater was also recently designated Canada’s 24th Bee City and the third one to get the title in British Columbia.
“The (Clearwater) Farmers Market also grew out of this because we started the first Farmers Market here encouraging people to grow their own food and not be dependent on corporations,” Neufeld said.
“This is something farmers just did; we always saved our own seed, could always grow our own food and exchanged seed. If I ran out of something because it didn’t work, a neighbour would have the seed, so that’s security. People don’t really think about it, but (grocery stores) aren’t food security. I have my pantry full now, but for how long?”
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Fay McCracken, director of the Clearwater Farmers Market, brought her Red Shed Farm Studio display to Seedy Saturday last weekend. The studio offers furniture makeovers, custom signs, painting parties among other products and services.
