David Sabino (MDP ’17) is passionate about the positive impacts of maintaining connections to cultural heritage, and during his field practicum last summer, he found a way to turn this passion into a community project that recently received vital grant funding. David spent his first field practicum in Nepal with Groundswell International, an NGO focused on the spread of culturally and ecologically appropriate agricultural methods. Specifically, David worked with Groundswell’s local partner, Boudha Bahanupati Project Pariwar (BBP-Pariwar), and one of his tasks was the establishment of a community seed bank.

Heirloom seeds are both culturally and agriculturally significant. As David explains, “heirloom seeds not only hold a great deal of cultural and spiritual value, these seeds are naturally evolved and adapted to the land and climate of the country.” Unfortunately, most farmers in Nepal only have access to modern hybrid and genetically modified seeds, which are sold cheaply and in large quantities by large corporations. These new seeds are often biologically engineered to only last one planting and harvesting cycle, which can be devastating to rural farmers who can’t afford to purchase new seeds each year. “With the reintroduction of native heirloom seed cultivars and the establishment of community seed-saving and exchange cooperatives, this program holds the potential to curtail this negative cycle,” David reports.

After pitching the idea to the board of BBP-Pariwar, David and his co-workers faced a number of challenges, but the most formidable was the lack of expert knowledge to provide training to community members regarding the use of heirloom seeds. David oversaw a partnership between BBP-Pariwar and a Nepalese organization called Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research, and Development (LI-BIRD), whose seed experts were ready to provide training to local farmers. To offset the cost of hiring these experts, David searched and applied for a grant, and recently, he succeeded in securing funds from the Susan A. and Donald P. Babson Charitable Foundation! Thanks to the hard work of David and his BBP-Pariwar co-workers, many more Nepalese farmers will now have access to heirloom seeds and the training necessary to use them well. 

Photo: David in Kathmandu during his field practicum in the summer of 2016.