Landrace seeds for food and feed

REVERSE Project
good practices presentation form
N° partner
Partner name
Thematic working cycle
1/ Presentation of the action
Action name
VALORISATION OF LANDRACE VARIETIES FOR FOOD AND FEED - RENABIO EVENT
"European meeting for the rebirth of the cereal biodiversity and the farmers know how"
Body / structure implementing the action (if different from the partner)
Réseau Semences Paysannes, CETAB, Triptolème, BEDE, Bio d'Aquitaine Contact person(s)
[email protected] Tél:+33(0)5 53 87 27 13 Action website
The action is
Implementation period of the action
Start date : July 2008
End date : July 2010
Step dates : RENABIO EVENT : 23-26 th June 2009
Action location
Plateforme du Roc - Port Sainte Marie - Lot et Garonne - Francia Partners involved
Italy - Rete Semi Rurali Spain - Red de Semillas Germazny - Saatgutforshung Rumania - Association HosmanDurabilAlgérie - AREA-ED Transformation du blé dur en boulgour et couscousSweden - Allkorn AssociationFrance - Réseau Semences PaysannesBulgaria - Svilen Klasanovi (baker)Portugal - Net Cohler par semearGreece - Penelop Bebeli ( Investigator, Université d'Athènes)Géorgia - Elkana AssociationIran - Maryam Rahmanian CENESTA NGOPalestine - Fuad Abusaif UAWC NGO Syria, Jordania - Salvatore Cecarelli ICARDA (international center for agriculturalresearch in the dry areas) Background of this action (environmental and political context),
Since the creation of the Réseau Semences Paysannes in 2003, a lot of local and regional meeting on farms has been organised, on technical issues. At European and international level anual meetings has been organised around the idea "let's liberate biodiversity" and focused moreover on the legal issues. These meetings allowed to elaborate common positions for the european debate on the regulation of the "conservation varieties" (2005 in France, 2006 in Spain, 2007 in Germany, 2008 in Italy). The RENABIO event has the goal to enrich this debate on the very practical idea that the landrace varieties are
confronted to legal restrictions. but have a very high nutritionnal and cultural interest : every cereal variety is initially
associated to a know how and a type of bread or food. Sharing, recognising and valorising these know how is
fundamental to make the landrace varieties more interesting for new farmers, researchers, policy makers.
The specific goal of RENABIO were to allow farmers from different countries to share their know-how on the cultivation,
maintenance and on-farm processing of old wheat varieties (and other cereals such as rye) and to create
communication tools to disseminate the outputs.
Goals, challenges, target
Goals:
1. Exchange experiences (farmers, researchers) around conservation, renewing and dynamic managing of landrace
varieties of cereals (principally wheat, durum wheat, corn, rye, spelt)
2. Exchange on know how around the uses and traditionnal processing methods of the landrace cereal
varieties cultivated on farms.
3. Valorisation and difusion of these exchanges and know how thanks to different media supports (film,
proceedings, photos)
Challenges
Sawing and cultivating on site around 150 varieties sent 1 year before by all the partners, beside the 150 varieties of Le
Roc collection.
Have constructive exchanges between so different peoples and cultures in only 4 days
Logistic challenges, to make all these people hosted in a rural area.
Target
Farmers, handcraft bakers and procesors, investigators implicated in participative researchs
100 persons from of 17 European and mediteranean countries (Allemagne, Angleterre,
Belgique, Bulgarie, Espagne, Géorgie, Grèce, Italie, Hongrie, Portugal, Roumanie, Suède, Algérie, Iran, Jordanie,
Palestine, Syrie) and 50 french peasant-bakers.
Expected results
The expected result of this event is to host on the event around 100 people (the farm does'nt allow much more) and to impact DIRECTLY through the network of the direct partners of the event, at least 800 persons who are farmers, researchers, handcraft bakers and procesors. (300 of these persons are in France - 500 beneficiaries are in Europe, detail available) Beside these figures the expected result is to create thanks to this pioneer event a dynamic of exchanges between the farmers/processors/researchers, who are working on landrace varieties and their valorization for foods. 2/ Description of the reasoning
Origin of the idea (what kind of political involvement?)
The interest to cultivate landrace cereal varieties has been lost in most european countries where the modern and
insdustrial agriculture has been developed. Associated to this evolution of agriculture the common know how on food
and traditionnal hand processing methods is declining. Nevertheless every landrace variety has an environmental
interest (adapted to a local agroecosystem) and an associated use for food : if you prepare the rumanian mamaliga or
the basque Taloa with a modern hybrid corn variety, they will be tasteless; the wheat landrace varieties are adapted to
hand bakery with sourdough. The idea of RENABIO event is to share, between the people still working with landrace
cereal varieties, the cultivating and processing methods they still have (or have rediscovered) in order to make these
people aware of the richness they have maintained. Thanks to the communication tools developed :
1. Be able to share the agrobiodiversity interests with new farmers and bakers
2. Be able to improve the politic recognition of the landrace varieties interest in term of : environnemental,
nutritionnal (quality and diversity of alimentation), patrimonial and cultural issues.
Is this a curative or a preventive action for biodiversity?
It is a curative action for the majority of european countries and a "preventive action" for the mediterranean and middle east countries. Methodology used to perform this action
Mobilise the network of NGO, investigators and peasants involved in the conservation of cultivated biodiversity Develop an adequate Program (complete program available on demand): Tuesday 23 : welcome, registering, presentation of the meeeting, Visit of the on farm collection 300 varietiesWednesday 24: 8 to 17h 4 Workshops on breads and foods:1 - Sourdough breads (wheat)pain au levain ( blé)2 - Rye breads, gingerbread3 - Pastas, semolina, frik4 - Tanoor breadsThursday 25: 8 to 17h, 4 Workshops on breads and foods:1 - Breads with spelt/engrain/ korazan 2 - Corn workshop: polenta (italia)/mamaliga (rumania), Broa (portugal) with white corn/rye, yellow corn/wheat), Talo (euskadi)3 - Georgian Breads with Thone hoven4 - Flat breads from Iran, Palestine with the tanoor hoven. 17h30 : Plain whorkshop on regulation issues. Friday 26 : Conferences -debate on Participative selection and open doors to local visitorsand in parallel from 9h00 to 16h30 : whorkshops on all the bakery know how developed the 2nd and 3rd day Process resources
The action is not totally closed at the date, the figures given are indicative
human
resources
5 persons part time
Coordination : 33 K €
Networking : 17 K€
Technical Work : 13 K€
Methodology support : 7 K€
Administrative tasks: 15 K€
Total 85 K€ total staff costs
time spent (1 pers 0,5 EFT 24 month, 1 pers 0,25 EFT 24 month, 1 EFT 6month, 1 EFT 3 month + administrative
by the team time ) … and a lot of volunteers time (at least 6 translators, 15 volunteers on the event)
external
cost
Communication tools : 27 K€
Hosting and meals : 20 K€
Transport : 25 K€
TOTAL external costs : 85 K€
action
funding
CS FUND : 52 K€Conseil Régional d'Aquitaine: 15 K€Conseil Général du Lot et Garonne: 15K€Mairies d'Aiguillon / Port Sainte Marie : 3 K€Biocoop : 3 K€ Communication tools used/created for this action
DVD Film 65min : Du grain au pain, cultivons la diversité (From grain to Bread, let's cultivate Biodiversity)
Production cost 20 000€
3000 DVD edited in french version (french subtitles) + a DVD without subtiles and wich can be subtitled in every partner
language is also edited
Proceedings : to be published in july-august 2010, in French & English
conceived as a cooking book on "how the landrace varieties are used and processed in the different areas of the
renabios partners".
An open photo gallery with more than 1500 photos of the wheats, preparations of breads, and traditionnals receipes
with wheats, rye and corn, conferences and people available at
http://picasaweb.google.com/nathaliebede?feat=email
3/ Evaluation of the action
Results of the action
What are the results of the action (with figures)? 150 persons have been hosted for the RENABIO meeting of 17 different countries. Translations of the workshops in 13 different languages. 300 varieties of cereals cutlivated on site, for local collection (150) and partners collections (150) presented by all the partners to all the participants, and then transformed in the traditionnal ways during 2 days. Beside figures: - Enthusiasm dominated the event and all participants left with a lot of energy and intention to disseminate this energy, the biodiversity and the know-how shared. There is a high level of expectations in the Eastern European countries on getting information on the management of genetic resources at farm level and the different ways to valorize crop biodiversity. The farmers from Hungary and Romania took a lot of information on small mills, small sorting equipment, farm-ovens to adapt it in their countries. Bulgarian bakers were discovering all the old varieties and the possibilities to process cereals at farm level. Iranian farmers have re-discovered the interest of using sourdough and decided to work again with it. The American bakers left with the intention to start growing old wheat varieties back home, the Palestinian have expressed the wish to organise such meeting in their region and all European participants have gained high interThe italian participants from Tuscany took date to organize a simlar event in tuscany in 2011.
- All the participants are willing to develop the network initiated during the meeting and are motivated to start collective efforts towards maintaining and processing cereal biodiversity.
Have the goals been achieved?
Yes for the exchanges.
Now the diffusion of the communication tools will be a clue.
Have the target been reach? Yes fully
Method for evaluating the action
Encountered problems (political, financial, legal, …) and how you resolved them.
The diversity of languages of the participants was a huge richness but also a huge challenge to make the people
understanding each other and also to solve financial costs of so many translations in so many languages. This
challenge has been resolved on site during the event thanks to the Babels volunteers. Babels is a net of translators
implicated in the translation needs of the social forums. www.babels.org
Local politician's opinion on the action
Very positive during the event, the president of the Department as well as the agriculture diroctor and 5 mayors of the local communities came to visit the meeting. A good participation to the open doors days of the local population has been seen. 4/ Teaching of the achieved action and Prospects
Global comments (how to improve the action)
The costs of translation for a wide diffusion and the costs and efforts necessary for a wide DIFFUSION of the communication tools developped has been underestimated. For this type of event and the goals pursued, this part has to be higher. The communication tools created have now to be valorised by a wide diffusion, and target also policy makers Prospects envisaged for the coming years
The RSP is continuously maintaining contact with all participants and partners and building on the output of this event, will develop initiatives towards biodiversity in Europe and beyond. Many projects have been launched associated and as a follow-up of this meeting : training program with exchange visits of Hungarians, German, Spanish , Italian and French farmers and people involved in biodiversity is being reviewed for funding by European Union (EU Leonardo Project), A participatory breeding programs has been accepted for funding by EU, involving partners in 14 Europeans countries (SOLIBAM project) : the wheats and corn programs are integrated to SOLIBAM project. (ex: Traditionnal and new receipes with chefs using corn for human nutrition (talo, milla, millassou, bread), analyses of nutritional values of ladrace cereals) In many countries several partners involved in the "Wheat and bread farmers meeting" are approaching us to build up a new program on cereals in order to enable them to start concretely the work on site: conservation work, sorting and storing cereals, participatory breeding programs, and adaptation of small equipment which can be built in the country and available for small farmers to produce sourdough bread, noodles, semolina with their own local varieties. .We hope to be able to answer to these expectations created by this farmers’ event in the coming years.
Preparing a project with Hungarian and Romanian partners to exchange on the building up of local house of seeds. Exchanges of this same type are in construction on fruits trees and fruit valorisation. The RENOVA federation
working on the renovation of old orchards is working with Hungary and Spain (CERIDA) for exchanges on
on farm processing of fruits.
A work on tomatoes degustations has been started by Bio d'aquitaine to formalize data on organoleptic interest of landrace varieties and could be complemented by this same type of info around europe.

Source: http://reverse.aquitaine.eu/IMG/pdf/landrace_seed_valorization_for_food_and_feed.pdf