Ecologist - 22nd May 2015
Sharing and saving seed is a crucial part of
traditional farming all over Africa, writes Heidi Chow. Maybe that's why
governments, backed by multinational seed companies, are imposing
oppressive seed laws that attack the continent's main food producers and
open the way to industrial agribusiness. But Ghana's women farmers are
having none of it.
My mother gave me some seeds to plant. And I'm also giving those seeds to my children to plant."So that is ongoing, every time we transfer to our children. And that is how all the women are doing it. We don't buy, we produce it ourselves."
Sitting together in the heat of the Ghanaian sun, Esther Boakye Yiadom explained to me the importance of seeds in her family and the transfer of knowledge between the different generations of women.
Esther continues to explain the role of the community in sharing and preserving seeds: "I am having tomatoes and I don't have okro. And another woman has okro. I'll go to her and then beg for some of her okro seeds to plant.
"And then if another person also needs tomatoes from me and I have it, I'll have to give to the person. Because you know every season changes, because maybe mine will not do well. But that person's will do well. So next season we can get to plant. That's why we exchange them."
An oppressive new law is putting all this under threat
The ability to save and exchange seeds after each growing season is an age-old practice that ensures that small scale farmers have seeds to sow the following year.
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