Image: Sina Ribak, La Ferme des 7 Chemins, 2025 Would you say your education was hybrid (enough)?
Was (agro-)ecology part of your training?
Within the collaborative workshop ‘Take Our Seeds Seriously’ guided by Seeds4all coordinator Adele Pautrat, I co-led a dialogue on hybridity and agri-ecologicalnes in seed education with the farmer-baker Fazia Smail.
As part of the Rural Resilience Gathering Program, embracing the vision of the Université Paysanne, our intention was to create a knowledge exchange about existent and desired teaching formats that are transmitting seed craft knowledge within a variety of rural professions.
First, to set the scene, Fazia spoke about her personal choices and difficulties in her hybrid education path in response to my questions. Fazia’s self-made profession is a puzzle of many teaching formats, including, apprenticeship, long-term immersion, practical workshops and farm tutoring. The participants had the opportunity to ask direct questions before it was their turn to engage in this interview format.
1:1 exchange
After the lively exchange, each participant presented the “Seeds Career Path” of his or her interviewee to the group. The method allowed to make room for the personal – The personal is political – and brought every voice into the room, enabling quieter participants to contribute.
grandmother’s knowledge
The group exchanged about studies, apprenticeships, WWOOFING, grandmother’s knowledge, collective (south-south) projects, the learning with instead of learning about in indigenous wisdoms, the destruction of local seeds by colonial violence and the needed work of the restitution of seeds.
As a result, the personal vitae of the international participants (Europe, Latin America, Africa) created a rich tapestry of seed educations in diverse professional settings from policy, to farming, processing, transformation, mothering, decolonial restitution and healing, pedagogy, collective artistic research, and social work.
In the short available time, this panorama was unfortunately not discussed further in the group. In a longer workshop format, the next step would be to define and write down new attractive, viable and diverse training programs in seed craft practices embedded in a variety of rural ‘inter-professions’ that enable to build a strong local agro-ecological economy.
The collaborative session ended with a call to create cross-disciplinary pathways to support to seed farming and seed stewardship, including in the future Université Paysanne.
Image: Hannes Lorenzen
Session 5: Take Our Seeds Seriously, 29.11.2025, Plesse
Initiated and led by Adele Pautrat, Seeds4all Coordinator and podcaster (ARC2020);
With: Fazia Smail, farmer-baker;
Further Subgroup hosts:
Frank Adams, seed artisan, market gardener, SEED Luxembourg association coordinator, teacher.
Tijs Boelens, market gardener and cereal grower.
Emmanuel Antoine, Graines de Liberté.