Bahia’s seed festival champions food sovereignty
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Around one thousand farmers, seed keepers, researchers, and activists gathered in Ponto Novo, Bahia, Brazil, for the fourth Crioula Seed Festival.
The event, organized by the Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores (MPA) and the Cooperativa de Produção e Comercialização Camponesa (CPC-BA), took place on September 18 and 19 at the Terra Nossa settlement. Participants discussed defending traditional seed varieties as a way to fight climate change and ensure healthy food for working families.
The festival highlighted the importance of preserving the genetic diversity cultivated by traditional communities, especially given the severe droughts and changing rainfall patterns affecting Brazil’s semi-arid northeast. Unlike industrial seed packages, Crioula seeds are naturally selected and adapted to the local biomes, Caatinga, Cerrado, and Mata Atlântica, over generations. Saiane Santos, a leader with MPA in Bahia, stated the festival underscores the need to recognize seed autonomy as a public issue.
The event also served to update the MPA’s National Seed Plan, which supports community seed houses, fields, and banks across the country. Organizers plan to advocate for new and stronger public policies for the sector at the state and federal levels. The location, Ponto Novo, is a site of ongoing struggle for land and a transition to agroecological farming, currently home to 60 families organized by MPA and the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST).
