We are thrilled to announce the recipients of our inaugural Seed Sovereignty Microfund, generously funded by the Kreitman Foundation. In 2025, the funds are being used to address issues caused by limited access to equipment within our networks, with a total of £20,000 awarded to five successful applicants, spread throughout the UK and Ireland.
These included an exciting partnership between members of our Southern, Northern and Scottish seed networks – Kirkstall Valley Farm (Leeds), Leeds Seed Savers, Hilltown Organics (Devon), The SouthWest Seed Hub, Perthshire Seed Library and Lancaster Seed Library. Their grant will be used to develop low-cost cleaning and drying equipment, hosting community build workshops, and creating resources for everyone to use within the network. The resources will include a list of affordable and durable equipment, a reference list of links to useful sources, build plans for the dryers, and a guide for how to build the zig zag seed cleaner in a workshop format.
Over the Irish sea, Cloughjordan Community Farm will create a new seed cleaning hub, perfectly located in the midlands of Ireland. This new mobile equipment will be transported to those unable to visit in-person, so as many people as possible can benefit from its uses. Cloughjordan Community Farm also plan to produce a video documenting their experiences of creating the hub, to inspire and guide others in the network.
In Wales, the Wales Seed Hub / Hwb Hadau Cymru will use their grant to fashion bespoke sets of cleaning sieves for distribution across the Welsh network and beyond. They will share a handy ‘beginners guide to screens’ with those looking to replicate their project. Another successful Welsh applicant was Llafur Ni, who identified an urgent need for additional machinery needed to scale up their seed production of rare Welsh oat varieties. The equipment will allow them not only to share the rare oat seed with more farmers but also begin producing a range of food products from their oats.
And finally, we have awarded Alex Fraser of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, a contribution towards their development of heritage wheat varieties in the Northeast.
We were blown away by the quality of all the applications we received, so thank you to everyone who took the time to apply. We will be running another Seed Sovereignty Microfund in early 2026, but in the meantime, congratulations to all of the successful applicants! We can’t wait to see their projects come to fruition and look forward to sharing their progress throughout the year.
