Local Seed Bank in Palestine
In the world of agriculture, all too often we stop cultivating a vegetable or raising an animal breed simply because they are not profitable enough. The economic market is oriented to maximizing yields at all costs, concentrating on a small selection of the most “productive” species. Though it may warrant less media attention, extinction is not limited to species in the wild, but also to the plants and animals that have been raised through ten thousand years of selective breeding.
This wealth of biodiversity, which we ourselves have created, is what the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), the largest agricultural development institution in Palestine seeks to value and conserve.UAWC's projects vary from agricultural land development, implementation of water supplies, capacity building, and development of rural women's livelihoods, legal awareness, emergency response, and other agricultural development projects. One of UAWC's pioneering initiative is a Local Seed Bank. The local seed bank is the first of its kind in Palestine that is working to save, protect, preserve, storage and reproduce local Palestinian seeds. It is considered a main solution to address climate change and an effective way to help Palestinian farmers to reach their right of food sovereignty.