A victory for seed sovereignty: AB 1810 passes with help from OAEC
OAEC’s Dave Henson and Cooper Freeman along with a group of partner organizations – Sustainable Economies Law Center, California Alliance with Family Farmers, Pesticide Action Network, California Climate Action Network, Slow Food CA, and the California Guild – have succeeded in exempting from AB 2470 (the California Seed Law passed in 2014) all noncommercial seed sharing activities. This means that all sharing, giving, exchanging, swapping, or other methods of freely receiving and giving away seed are newly protected under state law in California.
In 2014, AB 2470 created onerous registration, packaging, labeling, and testing requirements for all noncommercial seed sharing with anyone other than a neighbor three miles or less from your home. This bad piece of legislation went against the rights of gardeners, farmers, schools, communities, seed libraries, and organizations to save and share seed. Winning the new AB 1810 rights these wrongs by exempting all noncommercial seed sharing activities from the onerous requirements of AB 2470.
To protect and restore agricultural biodiversity and reject corporate and state control of our seed supply, OAEC fought to make sure that AB 1810 supports the incredible diversity of seed sharers in California. We are very proud of this important victory!
Learn more about OAEC’s free Seed Exchanges & Biodiversity Program >
Pictured above: Doug Gosling at the Ecological Farming Association annual seed exchange which OAEC has hosted for the past 15 years. Long live the right to save and exchange seed freely!