seeds

This weekend I went to a really interesting and positive event: a seed saving fair run by a network which aims to save and recover indigenous organic seeds and the ancient agricultural knowledge that goes with them.

The event was down in a valley just outside Quito. I started the afternoon feeling depressed after foolishly deciding I'd do some alternative tourism and spend my morning wandering around two of the towns in the valley. They were both strung along a main road thick with traffic and fumes, and flanked by a characterless strip of Kentucky Fried Chickens, McDonalds, Supermaxis (Tesco equivalent) and other chain stores. Once you got off the main road there were huge expensive houses with correspondingly huge dogs and even huger gates - the rich commuter belt for Quito.

But, a wander up a long dusty track took me out of the town to a a totally different world (a bit like stumbling upon Redhall walled garden for any Edinburgh folk). There were traditionally built adobe wood frame houses and trees covered in grapefruits and a buzzing gathering of people from all over Ecuador who had bought baskets of seeds to exchange, all lovingly saved, dried, wrapped and labelled.

As the afternoon went on people organised themselves into stalls from the different areas of the country and set out little displays. People wandered round asking questions and getting to taste weird and wonderful fruits and vegetables and learn about unfamiliar seeds.

My favourite was the aerial potato which looks like an angular potato, and apparently tastes quite like one, but grows in the jungle hanging from creepers.



I did some interviews with the farmers their about why they save seeds and heard some sad stories about the local crops which have now disappeared because people have lost the practice of saving seeds and market pressures and bribes/incentives from agribusinesses have started them on the path of buying hybrid seeds.

There were also lots of hopeful stories though about how people are now grouping together to improve things and it was amazing to see so many people getting enthusiatic about little hand-wrapped envelopes of seeds carefully labelled with the date, altitude and variety.

The interviews will hopefully be used as part of Progressio's campaign against terminator technology, the GM suicide seeds which are modified to be sterile, preventing farmers from being self sufficient by collecting seeds to sow next year, and ensuring that they become dependent on big agricultural companies.

It's great to think of little pockets of enthusiastic people tucked away behind the Kentucky Fried Chickens working on alternatives and protecting what they have.

I work in development

I have been thinking lots about what it means to be a 'cooperante' or development worker as compared to being an NGO worker working on lots of the same issues in my own country. Although a lot of the topics, problems and ways of working are the same, the politics are very different and a little uncomfortable at times.

Until now I have always been in the very comfortable position of studying development and criticising it from the outside, but now I now work in development. I feel like that transition somehow happened without me quite realising it.

Before arriving here I had somehow been thinking that I was continuing doing the same kind of communications and campaigning work, just in a different country. And in some ways I am, but the change of location from Edinburgh to Quito and from North to South also has a lot of implications.

I don’t think I had fully made the connections between that move and all of the politics of all the history and power relations of Development. (Being part of a UK development organisation with a clear agenda and power base – one of many forces trying to shape and change things here).

It is funny seeing myself through others’ eyes – imaging the stereotype I fit into for different groups of people I meet as they try to place me. Taxi drivers for example figure me out in 3 questions: “where are you from?”, “How long are you here for?”, “Ah you must be working for some charity or other – orphans maybe or the environment?”.

Trying to explain what I do to them makes me feel like a nice, idealistic little white girl naively imagining I can save the world. The jargon I inevitably slip into in my explanation “development”, “sustainable environment”, “civil society participation”, “advocacy at an international level” seems quite a long way from their reality as they begin their night shifts.

And I think a lot of people I meet from local organisations see me and my gringa face and see money – a possible connection to a development organisation in the UK and its funds. It is also amusing how frequently people feel they have to apologise after criticising northern consumers, lifestyles, companies and culture as they remember that I am there – as if I am representative of all things evil, exploitative and capitalist. (Not a position I often found myself in in Scotland!).

Mountains

Hi I haven't been great at writing this the last couple of weeks but I thought I'd start by putting up some photos and then I'll write something soon.

These are of Antisana National park where I went camping and walking last weekend.

Depressing climate change fact to accompany beautiful pictures: yesterday I read that the that the Antisana glacier shrunk 7-8 times faster during the 1990s than during previous decades. Run off from the glacier is one of the main sources of Quito's drinking water.