Around the world, seed diversity is threatened, and yet it is critical for ensuring a secure and resilient food system that serves both people and planet. At a time of climate breakdown, there has never been greater urgency to protect and restore global seed diversity, in the hands of farmers, not corporations.
For almost 40 years, The Gaia Foundation has been accompanying the Earth’s best custodians of soil, sea, and seed to protect and restore biocultural diversity. In partnership with communities, movements, and affectionate allies, we are revalorising knowledge systems that enhance the living world while restoring a respectful relationship with the Earth and our wild kin.
Stemming from our work with Indigenous communities in Africa and the Amazon, between 2012 and 2015, we released a series of three films (Seeds of Freedom, Seeds of Sovereignty, Seeds of Justice) exposing the true story of the corporate takeover of seed. From this work, and the Great Seed Festival and Feasibility Study that followed, the Seed Sovereignty Programme emerged in 2017.
Working across five areas of the UK and Ireland, our team of regional coordinators is accompanying the wonderful network of seed savers, grain rebels, and grassroots growers reimagining the future of seed on these isles. By reviving ancient crop varieties, retraining growers to save seeds adapted to their bioregions, and helping market gardeners diversify into seed production, the Seed Sovereignty Programme is restoring a biodiverse, ecologically sustainable and resilient seed system here in the UK and Ireland.
On our website, you can:
• Find your local Coordinator and discover where to buy agroecological seed in your region by exploring our interactive map.
• Learn about seed saving and production techniques, seed producers and current legislation with our free resources.
• Hear inspirational stories of small-scale seed producers and community groups reviving local varieties through our series of films.
• Sign up for upcoming training courses and events.
• Read stories of our work in action.
• Sign up to hear more on a regular basis.
Sinéad supports the programme at a national and international level. This includes engaging with advisors on legislation, coordinating the overall framework of the programme, creating opportunities for engagement and education, and developing partnerships with key organisations. With a background in food security, community empowerment and social enterprise, Sinéad's previous work has been in community-based food production, sustainable food innovation and community funding.
Katie is coordinating the seed sovereignty programme in Wales. She is also co-founder of the community organisation Mach Maethlon where she coordinates a horticultural training programme, food hub and community growing scheme. She grows wheat as part of a collective, which is baked by a local bakery and eaten by people in Mid Wales. In her free time she grows field scale potatoes and salad for her local ‘solidarity veg box scheme’. Katie is a member of the Landworkers Alliance Cymru coordinating group. She is especially interested in rare oats.
Catherine coordinates the seed network in the north of England supporting amateur and professional growers to grow more open pollinated seed for thriving, diverse and resilient food production. She is a co-director and founder of a ‘plot to plate’ community interest company in Teesside, runs the Middlesbrough Farmstart programme and has a background in helping people from diverse and challenged communities create gardens in urban spaces, particularly where these lead to new enterprises or work opportunities. Catherine is particularly interested in local and heritage varieties and celebrating the stories that sit behind them, and enjoys chatting to people at length about their growing adventures! When not actively engaged in mud, she enjoys making and crafting, which somehow always ends up back at seeds...
Jack works part time as Seed Sovereignty Coordinator in the South East of England, a role he took on in April 2026. Having spent three seasons growing at Birch Farm in North Devon, he moved down to London at the beginning of 2026, where he is currently growing at the Wolves Lane Centre, exploring community food growing, urban seed saving, and crowd breeding. His interests lie in the overlapping domains of food sovereignty and security, seed and soil health, and long-term climate mitigation. He also works closely with Tomorrow’s Kitchen, a CIC helping to support chefs play their role in the transition to an agroecological food system.
Holly works part time for the Seed Sovereignty Programme as Future Resilience Seed Coordinator, facilitating the programme's Crowd Breeding Project and inspiring others to explore the radical possibilities of seed. Alongside this work, she is also a commercial vegetable and seed grower based at East Neuk Market Garden in Fife. In 2024 Holly travelled the Pacific Northwest of the US & Canada on a Churchill Fellowship, exploring collaborative & dynamic approaches to seed production that build resilience and diversity. Before embarking on her journey into agroecological farming, Holly trained in formal horticulture, and has a background in urban community growing.
The Gaia Foundation has been working at the nexus of climate, seed and knowledge for over three decades, both in the UK and overseas. Across Africa we support local and indigenous communities to revive their local seed diversity, by restoring confidence in their traditional knowledge and governance systems. In 2012 we released Seeds of Freedom, a documentary narrated by Jeremy Irons and exposing the true story of the corporate takeover of seed. In 2014 we hosted The Great Seed Festival on London's Southbank, where the idea for a UK wide seed programme was first conceived. A Feasibility Study reaching out to seed growing networks across the UK & Ireland was conducted in 2015 and the programme started in 2017.
Matt Reynolds is a Cornwall-based seed saver and grower, working from a two-acre forest garden and seed-bed site. He initiated the UK’s Seedy Saturday/Sunday movement in 2002 (starting in Brighton) and now focuses on seed sovereignty, adaptive agriculture, and locally adapted landraces. He is South West Seed Sovereignty Coordinator with Gaia and a director of Grassroots Garden CIC and Living Seeds CIC.
