Planning your conference? Bring Sharon to your next event!
Some suggestions for topics include:
#1. Food that Makes Your Spirit Sing.
- go back to your cultural and spiritual roots
- discover plants or foods that make you feel great
- Plant, People and Place are deeply connected
- localized food systems make nutritional, ecological and economic sense
- take an active role in ensuring their survival (community seed banks)
- develop marketing strategies that have uniqueness and integrity
#2. Diversity is Security.
- the hand that holds the seed controls the food supply
- develop community based seed projects that keep seeds with people
- work with local farmers to grow crops that are developed locally
- regional food systems that optimize locale, consumer choice and variety
- find varieties that don't require high inputs to grow and produce
- develop local food supply and storage systems (cold storage, etc)
- community garden space as part of community planning
- grow food that people want not what corporations want
- develop local expertise and resources
#3. Saving our souls seed by seed.
- seeds are like babies, they are little packets of infinite potential
- plant parenthood concept including adoption of varieties to ensure their survival
- gardening metaphors in our own lives including composting, sowing, learning to observe a plant and its characteristics, selecting, saving and sharing seed
- seeds develop using sacred geometry, following patterns linked to all nature
- seed souls
- agriculture as a spiritual practice
#4. Organic Plant Breeding and 'on farm' seed development.
- update on European and international guidelines on organic seed
- farmer involvement (participatory research) and 'on farm' ideas
- optimize varieties for the local and growing conditions
- explore heritage, hybrid and 'open pollinated' terms
#5 Organic Gardening
- soil building including composting and green manures
- seed selection and seed saving
- growing the major crops including tomato and potato family, cabbage family, legume family
- companion planting
- crop rotations
#6. DIG Diversity in Gardens
- visualizations to broaden awareness and connect each person back to their roots
- explore how different cultures use plants in their foods, medicines and spiritual life
- discover what a garden means to various cultures
- discuss celebration of traditional seasonal practices as well as exploring new foods is a part of lifes bio-diversity. DIG, Diversity in Gardens, written by Sharon Rempel, can be sold to compliment this talk.
#7 Heritage Plants and Seeds
- explore the plants of the past and where you can find them today
- discover ways to help conserve loss of biodiversity
- what is heritage anyway?
#8 Seed Saving Basics
#9 Developing a Heritage Garden
- explore the methodology required to research past designs includes photos, written materials, books and various research repositories. The book Heritage Gardens
Inspirations from Our Past can be used in this talk.
#10. Developing Community through Seeds
- community owned seed banks
- participatory research methodology
- on farm or in garden research
- alternatives to GMO
- save what thrives in your region
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