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Our purpose at Annadana :
* To safeguard farmers and gardeners by providing access to organic open pollinated vegetable seeds and all skills related to seed saving and seed keeping.
* To help the farmers regain access to genetic resources and regain control of their own seeds.
* To re-empower women who played a major productive role in the food cycle before the green revolution, supporting harmoniously the life and health of their family.
* To revive and strengthen the ancient traditions of giving and exchanging seeds, respect to local knowledge which then bestows
solidarity in the social life.
Scope of open pollinated varieties of vegetables
1. Benefit for small farmers
Open pollinated varieties breed true to type and adapt well to low input farming using organic principles. The advantages of open
pollinated seeds are many:
- It insures seeds for the small scale farmers for their next season
- Traditional varieties are not adapted to industrial chemical farming but to small scale farming which rely on crop rotation, crop
diversification and systematic varietals mix up of crops from different genetic make up.
- They are characterized by polygenic resistance to pest and diseases being genetically diverse (multi gene resistance) and ensures the farmer against pest outbreak, crop losses, biotic and abiotic stresses.
- They contain more micro nutrients which combat malnutrition and micro nutrient deficiency in the diet of rural/poor people. They are suited to home gardening which is at the forefront of the struggle against malnutrition and can provide approximately half of the nutritional requirement for the marginalized population.
Conventional seeds can cost the farmers 1/3 of their total investment
for cultivating a crop.
2. Income generation
Traditional Open pollinated varieties hold a great (local) market potential, making available to local stalls, a diversity of products, colors, shapes, taste, nutrition hence stimulating customer interest. Typically farmers and vegetable stalls that offer better choices in
vegetables are more competitive. These traditional varieties are very tasty and nutritious. Actually, most people, who encounter them for the first time are truly impressed by the rich diversity of taste of these varieties. Diversity of colors, shapes and tastes typically contribute to customer interest, raises attention, curiosity, awareness and the consumption of vegetable increases greatly.
3. Benefit for the National Food Security
 The systematic in situ cultivation of open pollinated varieties, ensure us against bio diversity losses, conserving myriads of varieties which are essential for food security.
Open pollinated varieties are the gene pool used for conventional breeding; the native seeds are used to “produce” the new seeds
( High Yielding Variety - HYV, Improved variety and Hybrids). Without the traditional variety, no varietal progress is possible and
no conventional breeding is possible as they are the base- genetic- material that conventional breeder use to develop new varieties.
By conserving open pollinated varieties, we ensure our future breeding program.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate that more than 90 per cent of crop varieties have disappeared from farmers’ fields in the past 100 years.
The Control over seed production is central to food security, which is at the forefront of national security.
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