Global Bean’s Seed festival

On March 2 the Global Bean network invites to join the trans-european online seed festival that will concentrate on how to save and cultivate legume seed: beans, lentils, peas, chickpeas, faba and all their diversity. From 5 to 8 pm there will be a lot of storytelling on seed saving and exchange, there will be films, instructions and presentations, breakout groups for direct exchange, discussions and specialities and we will announce and award the winners of the ongoing bean beauty contests.

Exchanging seeds and telling stories about them is probably among the oldest springtime rituals ever since humans started farming. This is somewhat different from modern day online and offline catalogue browsing or garden-center shopping of mostly industrial F1 hybrids. Over the past years, the renaissance of local seed exchanges and festivals all across Europe has been severely hit by COVID – but they are dormant seeds, ready to re-emerge as soon as sun and rain allow.

How to exchange seeds

The seed festival will also facilitate real seed exchange between participants, who can offer their seed in advance, present them in breakout groups and finally exchange their real seeds via real mail. For better preparation please fill in this questionnaire with the seeds that you would like to offer. We will gather all the offers into a list that will be shared among the participants of the seed festival. You can also upload pictures there. During the festival, you will be able to discuss about seed exchanges in breakout groups. Thanks to the list that will be shared, you will be able to get directly in touch with each other and freely organise the exchange and shipment of seeds.

Seed festival program

17:00 Welcoming – Benny Haerlin (Global bean project)

17:10 Film “From Seed to Seed – Bean, Fabaceae” of the Longo Maï project Diy Seeds. Learn about beans pollination, botanical classification and diversity, life cycle, extraction, cleaning & storage of seeds. The short movie will be followed by a few words from Martina Widmer, Director of the Longo Maï cooperative.

17:30 Talks “How do you exchange seeds?”

• The Greek non profit organisation Panagiotis-Peliti will tell us about their experience of protecting and disseminating traditional seeds and local varieties
• The Ecological educational center in Munich, Germany (ÖBZ) will share with us insights about conserving and multiplying seeds and will present their coming event celebrating beans diversity in gardening
• Did you know that there are many possibilities to exchange and get seeds worldwide? We will present to you various alternatives that you can join!

18:15 Announcement of the Growing Bean competition

18:20 Breakout rooms “Questions & answers” with experienced seed producers:

• Martina Widmer (Longo Maï, From Seed to Seed)
• Patrick Kaiser (Genbänkle)

In parallel there will be a cooking session with the presentation of two beans recipes, hold by Cecilia Antoni (Beanbeat).

18:40 Breakout rooms for seed exchange: Get in touch with each other to discuss, offer and look for seeds in dedicated breakoutrooms organised per type of seeds. Indicate already now the seeds you are offering through this form. The list with the offers will be shared among the participants and you will be able to complete it and get in touch with each other.

19:40 Announcement of the Bean Beauty contest results

19:50 Wrapping up & Announcement of the next Global bean events

Throughout the event, you will be able to visit three breakout rooms with videos of the previous Global bean public sessions, a bean exhibition and the Global bean partners presentation.