Ancient seeds and contemporary technology (part 1)

Speakers: Adalbert Diouf, Marco Boscolo, Gaetano Carboni, Riccardo Bocci, Elisabetta Demartis, Giuditta Caimi

For thousands of years farmers have selected and cultivated seeds freely, working together, following the principles of cooperation and respect for nature and selecting seeds based on diversity, resilience, flavour, nutritive capacity, impact on health and adaptation to local agro-ecosystems. Today the market for seeds is in the hands of a few multinationals that, through patents, regulate the agri-food economy, encouraging intensive farming and causing a gradual abandonment of small farming activities in favour of the industrialisation of food production. On a global level this has caused an impoverishment of the soil, a progressive loss of biodiversity, increased deforestation, desertification, and an increase in the use of pesticides and fertilisers, which have caused pollution of water courses and led towards climate change. Farmers, scholars, scientists and societies worldwide have formed networks through which they work to defend a model of agriculture based on self-production and sustainability: a world that focuses on supply chains and that sees farmers involved at all stages of the food chain, innovating but retaining knowledge and expertise, local resources and diversity. In IF2017 we will investigate how contemporary technologies can help in the recovery and conservation of ancient seeds, and try to imagine real solutions.