This is a CTP of initiative: Red de Semillas (Spain)
This CTP describes the process how RdS became an informal federation. The organization was established 17 years ago in 1999. "We started as a group of people who took care of local varieties and genetic erosion in Spain. This group of people built up the local level, we set up local seed networks. […] Now there are 20 or 25 local seed networks all around in Spain. We became an association of local seed networks." Reaching the current status, the association of local seed networks was a long process, started in 2008. The aim was not to be a necessarily legal federation but to work and react as a federation. Officially Red de Semillas is still an association; and it acts and operates as a group of organisations. The operation of this national umbrella gives them more power to the lobby work, to fight for local seed issues. "It has been an ongoing process, it has not been a point, but the change has been very important for the organization."
In the past two decades with the cooperation of Red de Semillas approximately 20-25 local seed networks were established in Spain. Started from a group of people - who were committed to support local varieties - local seed networks were set up. Regional networks have been founded on the basis of local initiatives. Furthermore there are more people from these local networks who started to work in the national coordination of Red de Semillas as well. "Since 2000 we have established approximately 20-25 local seed networks in Spain. So we started from 0 and we were just a group of people who started to work on these issues and then local seed networks set up and then there were people from the local seed networks who started to work in the national coordination group as well." As regards the cooperation among the local networks: they collabobate, respect each other’s work, the do not interfere on daily level, only in case of special requests (e.g. asking for advices). "In the beginning of the process we knew that we had to work at the regional level so having these local seed networks was the result of that regional work and a part of the natural process. A natural effect of our regional work was that a lot of seed networks were established at the regional and local level."
In 2008 several local seed networks existed already, thus they started discuss about how to build federation. Back then, in the coordination of the national network there were only two people. In 2013 three more people were invited to join the coordination group. One year later, the improvement of the coordination group on the national level was a hot topic at the annual national meeting. "In 2014 we discussed this topic at the annual national meeting. We thought that we need to have more representatives of local seed networks in this coordination." As a result, four more people joined the coordination as representatives of their local seed networks. At their last meeting two more local seed networks sent their representatives to the coordination group.
There was no tension among the members; everybody shared the same view regarding the development of the association. "I feel that we are on a good way, we are doing a great job."
"During the process we did not feel that this was a critical turning point. […] It was a process of being more mature, more grown-up and stronger and to develop one of the targets of the organization: to develop the work at the regional level." They interpreted this CTP as the next level of the organization’s natural process. The members of RdS recognized that the organization had to focus on the regional work in order to deal with the issues of cultivated biodiversity effectively: "if you concentrate on this topic (cultivated biodiversity), you are talking about concrete farmers, concrete consumers, concrete varieties and local markets. On the national level you can only work on the political issues but you cannot work on those things which connect to the ground." In order to reach their goals they have been focusing consciously on the national and the regional level as well. Creating the federation was the part of this long, conscious process. It was not a moment, it was not an easily defined turning point in the life of the organization. They just felt that this is a way how the RdS needed to evolve.
The CTP presented important lessons for the organisation, they learnt how to organize themselves in the most effective way. "The change has been very important for the organization in terms of the struggle for breaking the genetic erosion because we are much stronger now." In conclusion Red de Semillas tries to improve the use of the local varieties in their country by having groups that are working at the local, regional level who are working with farmers, consumers, technicians and markets. At the national level they are exchanging methodologies, lobbying and cooperating with other organizations in other European and Latin-American countries.
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