"I feel privileged to have spent the summer of 2018 interning at the Palestinian Heirloom Seed Library (PHSL) that works to find and preserve ancient seed varieties and traditional farming practices. I had the chance to learn about how an active seed library works within a farmer community in the West Bank, occupied Palestinian territories (oPt). I had the chance to travel and meet many farmers in their fields, and learn about their knowledge and lost tradition associated with various traditional crops going extinct. The PHSL Traveling Kitchen project takes its makeshift kitchen to different villages and cooks crops straight out of farmers’ fields. What is significant about the PHSL’s approach is it does not first setting the agenda and then implementing a project. Rather, farmers within the PHSL network voice their concerns in an open participatory forum, and set the work for the PHSL. In an historic farmers’ conference I co-organized in August 2018 by the PHSL, the farmers recommended a consumer awareness campaign to promote traditional crop varieties, assigning the PHSL’s task for the year. My role was to help in that processes wherever I could. I engaged groups in walking and culinary tours, and networked with members of the alternative food community. I learned that passion and conviction led by one woman has the capacity to drive the work".
- Danya Nadar
Click here to read The Guardian's feature on this initiative (2016).
