Seeds are rarely seen for what they truly are: the building blocks of agricultural systems that determine how our food is produced. This is no accident. It is the result of industry taking control, progressively turning seeds into just another input in service of a growth model built on privatisation, standardisation, and homogenisation—with seeds at the hub.
As a consequence, in both farming and food production, the loss of knowledge related to seed diversity has become so pervasive that even its very absence seems to go unnoticed. Yet seed stewardship has always been inherent to working with agriculture and food.
Reintroducing this concept is crucial in building capacity for agroecological seed systems at regional levels. But how to challenge the dominant approach to seed practices, and bring alternative knowledge to a wider audience?
In the first of this two-part series, we look at how knowledge about agricultural seeds is actually shared and how expertise supporting seed autonomy can be accessed.
By Adèle Pautrat.
Seeds are overlooked in agri-food education
Agricultural courses tend to overlook the strategic importance of seeds. As a result, most future food producers enter the field with little or no understanding of the diversity of seed types, and the interplay with broader issues such as biodiversity, climate adaptation and the environment, health, sustainability and food system resilience.
In France, official bodies have noted that the visibility and attractiveness of training on seeds have declined over time. Programs fail to align with national needs in plant genetics and varietal improvement.
Globally, similar patterns appear. In many agricultural colleges, courses on seeds are minimal or absent, leaving graduates with little grounding in a foundational element of agriculture. Research in agricultural education shows that even where seed components exist, they are often limited in scope and fail to equip future practitioners with practical or ecological knowledge of seed systems.
And it seems that seeds are similarly undervalued in other food-related training. We addressed this with Fazia Smail, a farmer-baker in Belgium with ten years of professional training in cooking, baking, agriculture, and (to be completed this year) nutrition. At no point in her course did she encounter meaningful discussions of agricultural biodiversity, seed diversity, or the impact of seeds on taste, health, and the environment.
“Even today in nutrition courses, learning about bread with one teacher, there was no mention of seeds… There was no connection to the land, soil health, farming practices, or crop biodiversity. As if the healthy molecules appeared by magic.”
Teachers as trojan horses for seed autonomy
Of course, there are exceptions. We encountered one at the Luxembourg Agricultural Technical High School in Diekirch, which hosted the last edition of the Let’s Liberate Diversity forum.
There, since 2010, Frank Adams—a market gardener, seed artisan, and biodiversity advocate—has developed a module on seed multiplication, covering everything from genetics to harvesting, cleaning, drying, testing, and storage as part of the market gardening course he was originally hired to teach. This module is optional and ungraded, but its impact is significant. As Frank explains:
“Usually, the response from students is very positive. Most initially see seeds as a commodity, something you buy like diesel or fertilizer. But they quickly understand not only the botanical side of it—the fact that the seed is the first link in the plant life cycle and has such a strong impact on it—but also how plants adapt to their territory. They realise that local seeds differ from industrial ones mainly because they’ve been bred in connection with specific conditions. This adaptation through repeated multiplication is something that usually strikes them.”
The course equips future market gardeners with the knowledge to assess seed quality and adopt alternative sourcing strategies—making them more likely to support local seed production, which offers criteria for diversity and adaptability not found in conventional seeds.
These students are fortunate to have Frank Adams at their school. In many cases, the existence of such modules depends largely on the dedication of teachers who believe in the importance of sharing knowledge about seed autonomy.
But this reliance on dedicated people is not sustainable: when they retire or move, what happens to the courses they have developed? In his team of five, Frank is the expert on seed selection and cultivation. As he nears the end of his career, concerns weigh on his decision to leave:
“If I retire, there will be a gap. We don’t know how to fill it. The solution would be to train another young teacher. Train a trainer so to speak. And until then, I have to stay involved to make sure the project continues.”
What are the alternatives?
Alternative training – that fosters the reappropriation of seed knowledge and skills – does exist.
In France, the Réseau Semences Paysannes (Farmers’ Seed Network – RSP) offers a catalog of training courses taught by network staff (organisational and regulatory aspects) and farmers (practical skills). RSP has also co-developed modules on farmers’ seeds for the diploma in organic horticulture that are offered in five regional training centers across the country.
While working on the production of the audio mini-series we published at the end of last year, we learned about the Seed Sovereignty training developed by the Gaïa Foundation. In episode 3 of this podcast, Holly Silvester introduces the approach developed by her teams, and the concrete impact of these offerings, which have seen an increase in local artisanal seed production. A must-listen!
At EU level, the LiveSeeding project offers modular training on organic breeding, organic seed production, and quality seed systems, including online and on‑site sessions as well as a Summer School.
Last but not least, many open-source materials are available online to help people develop the skills and tools needed for seed diversity management. For example: The DIY Seeds project by Longo Maï and the European Civic Forum, which offers 45 educational films in 13 languages on how to produce seeds from different vegetables; A series of three technical manuals by the European Coordination Let’s Liberate Diversity! (with support from the European Union as part of the DYNAVERSITY project), on how to build and manage Community Seed Banks.
Many other alternative initiatives developed by activist organisations could be cited here—or mapped elsewhere. Whatever shape they take, supporting, sharing, and learning from them helps further the reappropriation of seed autonomy.
Learning together, carrying alone
Peer-to-peer exchange is another path playing a pivotal role in the sharing of knowledge and skills for seed autonomy. This is illustrated by Fazia Smail’s journey.
During her culinary training at EFP in Brussels, Fazia did an apprenticeship in a restaurant where she stumbled upon sourdough bread. The chef’s sensitivity to local ingredients and in-house production left a lasting mark:
“I loved his cooking, his philosophy. It shaped my vision of cuisine. It gave me a sensibility that I put into my bread. It brought me back to the land, to agroecology, to local products, to farmers.”
Around that time, Fazia decided she wanted to become a baker and master the craft from seed to bread, while being mindful of peasant seed issues.
In Belgium, professional bakers must sit an exam, which can be prepared at work-study training centers like the EFP. Because she had already found the school’s approach too conventional, Fazia did not want to return. Despite searching, she could find no training for artisanal bakery in her country. So, she decided to prepare for the exam independently while seeking out on her own initiative the knowledge she deemed essential.
“I had learned in the restaurant to bake with modern wheat. Later I met Marc Dewalque and gained awareness and knowledge of grain populations. But when I started working with them, I realized I didn’t know how to bake them, because the dough behaves completely differently compared with modern grains. I had to seek out the know-how to bake with farmers’ varieties. I found it with Nicolas Supiot; that allowed me to deeply transform my baking practice.”
Nicolas and Laetitia Supiot have been agroecological farmer-bakers for more than 30 years. Since 2012, they have run the “Les Jardins de Siloé” farm in Brambéac, Brittany, raising heritage cattle, sheep, and goats, and cultivating peasant cereal varieties.
Over three years, Fazia visited their farm for week-long training sessions that she describes as “comprehensive training in agricultural work with a focus on growing heirloom grains for baking.” It covered agroecology, wheat genealogy, baking with population varieties, specialized milling tools, micro-supply chain development, and nutritional aspects.
Each week of training at the farm cost Fazia around €700 (including transportation, accommodation, and food). As we talked to her, we asked ourselves: whether we look at the alternative training paths mentioned earlier or at learning through peer-to-peer transmission, who do these approaches appeal to?
Cost of forging your own path is more than many can bear
Fazia speaks of her journey with gratitude and satisfaction. She has no regrets, knowing she could never have gained this knowledge through conventional training. Yet she is fully aware of the structural limits of such a path.
While juggling paid work and training in agroecological and artisanal practices, Fazia separately earned official qualifications in baking and farming, which are legally required in Belgium and allow her to access start-up and investment support.
To establish herself as a farmer-baker though, she forged her own path. And not only does she have no diploma to show for it, but the profession of farmer-baker is not formally recognised in Belgium.
Such high levels of investment (in time and money), coupled with a lack of institutional recognition, are barriers to accessing alternative training pathways—especially for young people with limited finances. One could go even further and suggest that only those already convinced of the social, environmental, and nutritional arguments for seed autonomy are willing to take this path.
Fazia inherited her passion for ancestral know-how from her grandfather: “I wanted to make bread that’s as nourishing as the love I received from him.” Her commitment is deeply personal—as is often the case with alternative paths—but her testimony highlights a key challenge: how can the free seed movement reach beyond an already convinced core audience?
In the second part of this series, we will examine some proposals for tools, frameworks, and prerequisites to strengthen the teaching and transmission of artisanal and agroecological seed knowledge and practices.
The collective imaginings are the fruit of a Seeds4All workshop at the ARC annual gathering in Plessé, France, in November 2025, co-facilitated by several initiatives working to disseminate seed knowledge and skills to a broader audience of agricultural and food practitioners.
Stay tuned—the findings and proposals gathered will be worth it!
Have some thoughts to share on this topic? We’d love to hear from you on LinkedIn, Instagram or Bluesky!
More
Whats Seeds for Tomorrow? A Podcast Mini-Series by Seeds4All and Seed Carriers
The Future of Seeds: The Power Play Between Patents and New GMOs
Where The Untended Feeds Us – Cécile Gilquin’s “Tiers-Paysage”
Letter From a …Forager! Third Landscapes and Edible Wild Plants
Crafting the Collective – Tijs Boelens’ Vision for a Farmer-Led Grain Revival
Rural Resilience Gathering | Knowledge is the Power to Shape our Rural Futures Together
Re-Sowing the Seeds of Connection in Switzerland, Part I – Nurturing What We Have
The EU Has the Funds but Lacks Focus – This Farm Shows What’s Possible with Both
France | Not Perfect, But Possible – Seeing is Believing at Institut de Tramayes
