By ALBAY, Philippines — Do you know of seed savers in your community?
A team of Bicolano communicators, called Bicol Umalohokan, is looking for farmers who save seeds. It may be the seed of a rice variety, a vegetable, a staple crop (besides rice), a native tree, or even a mangrove species, and whatnot.
Bicol Umalohokan will feature the seed savers in their campaign, as one of the teams of Umalohokan Fellows with Oscar M. Lopez Center, an organization in the Philippines that has been organizing climate action campaigns through the Balangay Media Project.
Like the town criers (news bearers) of the past, them Umalohokan Fellows put front and center climate actions and solutions. In the 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, it’s clear that human activities involving global gas emissions “unequivocally” caused this unprecedented warming of the planet. So are its impacts— from more severe typhoons and droughts, making life harder for the most vulnerable (farmers included) to climate change.
Team Bicol Umalohokan’s campaign is about the practice of saving seeds in the Philippines, as a scalable climate solution.
Global food production contributes a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, with crop production for direct human consumption accounts for 21 percent of food emissions, according to Our World In Data summary report which is based on the 2018 study by Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek published in Science.
This means tackling climate change beyond clean energy solutions is just as important. As the recent IPCC report reiterates, every degree of warming avoided saves lives.
Help the group find the seed savers in the Philippines by sending a message via their Facebook page, Bicol Umalohokan. The team is composed of Solutions Journalism practitioner Mavic Conde, Sustainable Development Goals champion Apple Allison, and sustainable tourism consultant Rome Candaza.
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