Don sees himself helping to nurture networks of community gardeners who exchange seeds, labour, tools and time in order to grow food - in part inspired by al-Qaida.
Like zoos, botanical gardens often work in tandem with each other, exchanging seeds, pollen, and other genetic information to preserve rare, threatened, or endangered species.
Taylor works with children in several community gardens in Philadelphia, tours with his band, exchanging seeds and stories on his route, and is developing a curriculum to teach kids about seeds.
If they cannot afford GM seeds they will be oustripped by bigger producers, putting at risk traditions passed on through generations for saving and exchanging seeds, choosing pesticides and harvesting methods.
I am horrified about the EU directive aimed at controlling what we may be able to grow in the future - can you imagine not being able to legally exchange seeds without a licence?
Another limitation is the difficulty in exchanging seeds of a crop species: rice seed international exchanges have to be covered by import permits and phytosanitary certificates from national quarantine authorities.
Furthermore, the reluctance to adopt formal farmers' privileges in patent laws themselves can be overturned through jurisprudential liability thresholds, especially if plant-breeders' rights recognise growers' right to save and exchange seeds, as established before Canadian courts.
They were botanical gardens in the sense of building up collections of plants and exchanging seeds with other gardens around the world, although their collection policies were determined by those in day-to-day charge of them.
The objects of the society were to "search out and cultivate old garden flowers which have become scarce; to exchange seeds and plants; to plant waste places with hardy flowers; to circulate books on gardening amongst the Members... [and] to try to prevent the extermination of rare wild flowers, as well as of garden treasures".
At sites and forums like GardenWeb's Seed Exchange, you can exchange seeds with people interested.
