Seeds of Diversity
organization
Seed of Diversity, Semences du patrimoine, is a Canadian charitable organization that aims to "search out, preserve, perpetuate, study, and encourage the cultivation of heirloom and endangered varieties of food crops", particularly Canadian plants, and to educate the public about their use. It has been called "The Canadian NGO leader in two key areas of food system sustainability: crop genetic diversity and the redesign of pollination strategies".
Seeds of Diversity originated in 1984 as the Heritage Seed Program of the Canadian Organic Growers organization.
Members of Seeds of Diversity propagate and share seeds and other plant material, and the organization also runs a "seed library" using seed-storage technology. Educational materials related to seed saving are a major focus of the organization. Seeds of Diversity acts as a central organizing force for Seedy Saturday events across Canada.
History
In 1984, Canadian Organic Growers organized a conference on the loss of genetic diversity in food crops, with Kent Whealy the director of the U.S. organization Seed Savers Exchange as keynote speaker. Inspired by that conference, COG's Heritage Seed Program was initiated to help salvage Canada's crop-plant heritage, with Alex Caron as coordinator. In late 1987, after the HSP had lain dormant for about two years, Heather Apple, as a long-term organic gardener, past president of the Durham, Ontario chapter of COG, and a Seed Savers Exchange contributor, responded to a request from Alex Caron and volunteered to reinitiate the programme. Her aim was to develop it as a grass-roots seed-saving organization modelled after the Seed Savers Exchange, and beginning with an announcement in August 1988, she produced a separate newsletter for the program which became a magazine by December 1988.
The public source identifies “Seeds of Diversity” as organization. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Seeds, Diversity and organization.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 21, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7445703. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1984, 1987 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “Seeds of Diversity” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.