What are seed movements? According to Hungarian researchers Bálint Balázs from the Environmental Social Science Research Group (ESSRG) and Guntra Aistara from the Central European University in Budapest, they are more than a manifestation of the struggle to increase farmers’ and gardeners’ access to seeds.

In the paper “The Emergence, dynamics and agency of social innovation in seed exchange networks”, published on The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food, they explore seed saving and sharing as networked practices for the maintenance of genetic diversity as well as for social innovation in a new type of seed exchange networks in Hungary, Austria, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK and the European Coordination of the Let’s Liberate Diversity network.

Balázs and Aistara focused on the emergence, dynamics, and agency of seed exchange networks in Europe as innovative social configurations to explore how seed networks promote transformations in agricultural, ecological, political, material, social, and cultural realms.

Within DYNAVERSITY project, Bálint Balázs leads workpackage 1, analysing of the context of genetic resources in Europe. Therefore, this scientific article is a key outcome of the evaluation of dynamic and innovative seed systems from both a socio-economic and social perspectives.

Download the Article: Balázs, B. and Aistara, G., “The Emergence, dynamics and agency of social innovation in seed exchange networks”, The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food. 24, 3 (Oct. 2018). pp. 336-353.

Photo credits: Seeds, Wikimedia Commons