Food, seed and climate change resilience

Promoting regenerative agriculture, supporting small farmers – especially women – to enhance their indigenous knowledge and seed diversity, and to safeguard seed and food sovereignty for generations to come.

Seed and food sovereignty for climate change resilience is a core part of Gaia’s work. Food sovereignty is defined as ‘the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and regenerative methods’. Food which is local, is grown in nourished not intoxicated soils, and is rich in nutrients. This goes beyond food ‘security’ – it prioritises local and national economies and markets over international trade, and our responsibility to future generations of all species through the way in which we grow our food.

Food sovereignty goes hand in hand with regenerative agricultural practices such as composting, water harvesting and polyculture (diversity of crops), often referred to as agroecology. Agroecological approaches to food growing are key for climate change resilience as they sequester carbon, cooling the planet rather than contributing to climate change. This approach is completely juxtaposed to the industrial agriculture system which generates vast amounts of greenhouse gases, is the driver of landgrabbing globally, destroys and pollutes biodiverse habitats, keeps animals in appalling conditions and places profit before all else.

Gaia is proud to work with small, family farmers supporting diverse, local, agroecological farming practices. It is these farmers who feed over 70% of the global population, on a quarter of the land. By offering trainings in reviving indigenous seed diversity and knowledge, by facilitating immersive community processes such as dialogues, eco-cultural mapping and calendars, and through strategic advocacy collaboration, we support communities to regain confidence in their traditional knowledge and their indigenous seed varieties. We promote peer-to-peer, farmer-to-farmer exchanges, encouraging communities to link up with others doing the same.

Click on the links below to find out more about our lead programmes relating to seed, food and climate change resilience, and to watch the films which bring this work to life.