KOCHI: The Fair Trade Alliance Kerala (FTAK) will conduct the Seed Festival (Vithulsavam-2016) at Karuvanchal in Kannur District from January 22 to 26, to celebrate the ‘magic of seeds’ that feed as.
The Festival has been envisaged as a focused effort at displaying, exchanging and preserving all sorts of seeds, planting materials, indigenous livestock, medicinal plants and wild trees.
“It will provide an opportunity to farmers to share and multiply the traditional seed varieties,” said Thomas Kalappura, chairman of the FTAK, which is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2005.
“The festival will bring together farmers,
environmentalists, activists, artists and musicians to bring to light the importance of diversity of seeds and to rekindle the connection between seed and food,” he said.
“The festival, which had its origin five years ago in 2010, will also witness the tenth anniversary celebration of the FTAK. “The idea behind the initiative was to help the local market to access the growing number of organic farmers in Kerala.
It was a time when the agrarian market was plummeting with price fluctuations, low yield and climatic challenges.
“Moreover, market access seemed a distant reality for most of the farmers,” said FTAK promoter Tomy Mathew.
Around 5,000 farming families, whose members will be part of the largest indigenous seed preservation effort in the Western Ghats, are currently engaged in various promotional programmes.
The Seed Swaraj Yatra, which was launched in the hilly tracts of Malabar on January 5 to spread the message of trade justice, farmers’ right over seeds and the need to protect and preserve indigenous seed varieties, concluded at Vellarikkundu in Kasargod after covering various places in Kozhikode, Wayanad, Kannur and Kasargod.
At the seed festival, the history of immigration to Malabar more than half-a-century ago will be traced through exhibitions, light-and-sound shows, audio-visual presentations and folk arts.