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“... the seed program was a real success story which has
improved a lot of lives in the remotest areas of our country. People are
appreciating and are very grateful.” -
Zimbabwe
Who We
Are
 Seed
Programs Inc. is a nonprofit 501 (C)(3) humanitarian organization that
solicits donations of good quality vegetable seed and makes it available
in multilingual garden packets at low cost to humanitarian organizations
for international relief and development. Since 1998 SPI has
distributed over 10 million packets to more than 60 countries on five
continents.
In
addition to soliciting seed, and arranging for packet printing and
filling, SPI arranges transportation and provides necessary
documentation for importation of seed. Each shipment includes a
gardening booklet that explains in simple terms and pictures how to
prepare and grow a garden. The booklet also gives instructions on seed
handling and storage, nutritional information, and ideas for using
gardens in education programs. SPI offers their expertise in seed
programs and vegetable production to train and support partner
organizations.
“... we gave seed to over 5000 families
who had nothing to start their lives moving again. The program benefited
individuals, schools and clinics. Some beneficiaries are those people
who have the dreaded disease HIV/AIDS who do not have enough food. The
seed helped them to grow their own vegetables which are most needed in
their bodies.” -
Zimbabwe
Value of
Seed Programs
 Vegetables
are an ideal supplement to the carbohydrate-based diet of most of the
world’s poorest people. In addition to flavor and variety, vegetables
supply essential vitamins and minerals lacking in most diets. This
improved nutrition is especially critical for children with immune
systems compromised by HIV/AIDs.
Gardens
are valuable self-help sources of food and income. In addition to
feeding their families, seed recipients can sell excess produce to
purchase other necessities. Perhaps the greatest benefit is the sense
of hope and pride arising from being food self-sufficient.
“I have never seen the students so
excited and they love showing off their gardens to me when I come to
visit. The students no longer view eating vegetables as something
foreign and they can look at their plates and tell me if it is balanced
and they all want to grow up to be strong and healthy.”
-
Peru
Meet our
Partners
 SPI
partners with individuals, NGOs, faith-based organizations, service
clubs, and government agencies to provide seed for schools, community
gardens, development projects, and training programs. Projects range in
size from individuals or Peace Corps volunteers who receive a box of
1,200 seed packets to large interdenominational church relief
organizations who distribute over half a million packets a year to five
African countries. Some organizations also include seed in boxes of
clothing, toiletries, and other necessities distributed to needy
families. SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT
In
addition to standard seed programs, SPI has several pilot programs
testing the feasibility of distributing seed through microenterprises.
Entrepreneurs or cooperatives purchase low-cost seed from SPI and become
seed distributors or develop new produce marketing opportunities within
their communities.
“We decided to grow new vegetables
together as a group. It was difficult to find the seeds for uncommon
vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, lettuce and good
quality seeds for the common vegetables from the local market. However,
we were able to obtain high quality seeds from Seed Programs Inc.”
–
Mongolia
Impact of
Seed Programs
In the
last 10 years SPI has supplied seed for over 1 million gardens
world-wide. Through these programs children and adults meet basic food
needs, diversify their diet, and improve their nutrition. Best of all,
they develop the hope and self-esteem that comes from providing their
own food. The results are reflected in their own words
“During our harvesting period we enjoy
“good soup” (vegetables); we used to eat one kind of soup every day but
the seeds that the people sent us it help plenty. We thank them plenty
and let them remember us until we can grow our own food to eat”.
- Liberia
“The main benefits from the seed program
are to teach children how to use vegetables to improve nutrition and how
to develop and maintain a small garden. Overall, the students had
success with their gardens. Cucumbers, beans, peppers, radishes, and
cabbage grew very well.” -
Ecuador
“The program was carried
out on the right time in which the returning people were being settled
in their original or preference areas. This affected positively on
people’s lives because those [who] depended on World Food Programme
distribution for years are starting to see fire on horizon that revive
their hope and faith for better life in next few months.”
-
Angola
Contact
Us Seed Programs Inc. 806 698 6527 7913 Vicksburg Ave.
Lubbock TX 79424
bender.spi@nts-online.net
www.seedquest.com/spi
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The
Humanitarian Network and Project Support Center
Our Purpose..
To Connect Resources with Projects.
We have gathered data over the last 16
years from tens of thousands of projects which have been
completed in more than
200 countries
and geographic regions, involving hundreds of resource providers, shippers, and
project funders. We want to make it
EASIER
for
that knowledge base and new resources to make their projects more
successful.
Our Network and Country Resource Guides
connect
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where you get started!
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Providers
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right cause
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connected to
clubs,
advisors,
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resources.
Clubs
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clubs in finding resources
Districts .. Have their own channels
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Locate goods and services for international projects.
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Find project specific funding programs to finance
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Discover discount and no cost shipping programs.
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 More
about The Network .. We impact Program Funding,
Shipping, and Resource Acquisition. It should be noted that not all
understand The NETWORK, it's purpose, and its objectives. That is
fine. We choose to only work with HUMANITARIAN Organizations that
share our vision and understand that Connecting and Collaborating
with The Network can and will impact those that they serve. |
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The humanitarian Network: During 2008 started as a
continuation of PDG Jim Johansen's Hands Across the Sea Project. As
we collected information from many Project Managers, NGOs,
Nonprofits, Foundations, and others engaged in International
Humanitarian Projects and Programs, it evolved into a place for
projects to connect with resources. A place for all to connect,
collaborate, and partner for the greater good of those that all seek
to help. It has become The HUMANITARIAN Network. (THE NETWORK)
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Contact: Jim Lang,
Rotary Club of North Mecklenburg County
Phone:
704-564-7126 e-mail:
jflang@bellsouth.net |
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Sowing Seeds to
Fight World Hunger
A Great Source of Seeds:
When John Batcha, a Rotarian and member
of the North Mecklenburg County, North Carolina Club, retired after a
career as a seed company executive, he decided to harness his knowledge
of the seed industry to help address world hunger. On the one hand, he
knew that each year commercial seed companies had good quality seed they
did not need for their marketing programs. On the other hand, John knew
that diets of the hungry were usually high in carbohydrates, sometimes
from grains that they grew which also served as seed for the next crop.
However, those meager diets were usually deficient in the vitamins and
minerals provided by vegetables with which they had little experience in
cultivating, partly because quality seeds were so difficult to obtain.
John created a
not-for-profit organization, Seed Programs Incorporated, that obtained
donations of unused vegetable seed from the major US seed companies,
paid to have them put in garden size packets which along with
cultivation and storage instructions were printed in common languages of
the third world, and made them available to humanitarian organizations
at cost. This enabled humanitarian organizations to ship light weight
seed to areas of need, provide training in gardening and help the hungry
populations to become self-sufficient in raising nutritious food. The
cost has remained very low because Seed Programs Incorporated only has
two paid employees. One has a Ph.D. in horticulture and for 19 years ran
the Texas A&M’s vegetable research program in Lubbock, Texas. The other
is a 40-year veteran of the international seed industry. Both do the
all-important work of ensuring that the seed provided is matched to the
growing conditions of the destination region. All the other functions
are done by volunteers.
This endeavor has
been very successful! The organization has received millions of dollars
worth of good quality bulk vegetable seed. Organizations ranging from
grade school classes to major missionary and philanthropic organizations
have been involved in distributing seed and providing cultivation
training in over 65 countries world-wide. In some cases the new
gardeners have been so successful that they have been able to establish
micro businesses, selling excess produce and buying the seeds for the
next crop themselves. Rotary has been a major champion of this activity
with many clubs taking on projects in areas in which they had contacts.
In fact, a couple of years ago "Rotarians Sowing Seeds to Fight World
Hunger" was a showcase project for John’s home District 7680 and many
projects continue today.
In spite of all this
success, the need to fight hunger is growing. The current world economic
crisis on top of an already existing world-wide food shortage has led to
poverty stricken third world organizations themselves contacting Seed
Programs Incorporated directly. They need seed and training but are
unable to pay for either the seed or for shipping it. Because Seed
Programs Incorporated has no source of funding beyond recovering the
cost of providing the seeds, it has been unable to assist even though
the need is dire. It is this situation that has given rise to this
document. We hope that if we publicize some of the most urgent requests
and facilitate projects, Rotary Clubs working alone, together or with
other organizations may join us and find the resources to help.
Urgent Needs in Uganda:
Two requests have come from Uganda, a
landlocked country of 31,000,000 people in East Africa that has been
ravaged by years of despotism and civil wars. The current government has
brought relative stability; however, there are still marauding rebels in
the north who terrorize the population and kidnap children to serve as
soldiers and wives. With some stability has come a modicum of economic
growth; however, the Gross Domestic Product per capita is only $1,100
and over half the population lives on less than $1.25 a day. The
requests that have been received by Seed Programs Incorporated are as
follows:
-
Head Mistress,
Lugeye Primary School, Day and Boarding, representing 600 primary
schools in the Wakiso district of Uganda
The schools are
spread over a large area of the country and draw children from a
rural background. As a result of poverty, the children are
undernourished when they arrive at school but the schools lack the
money to buy food for them. Their idea is to plant gardens around
each of the schools to raise food to nourish the children and
improve their effectiveness as students. The children would also be
taught gardening skills that they could take back to their villages
and employ locally to grow food for their families and neighbors.
The schools have identified a need for 6000 seed packets of each of
about 16 different vegetable varieties. From the varieties that were
requested, it is obvious that the Head Mistress has really
investigated the value of growing vegetables at the schools because
all are varieties that grow well in that region of Uganda and, with
high quality seed, would provide thousands of pounds of vegetables.
When informed that the seeds, shipping and program support would run
about $24,000, the Head Mistress replied that given the current
state of Ugandan schools, no funds were available. The need is
urgent but one that Seed Programs Incorporated, by itself, can’t
meet.
-
Director,
International Child Welfare Organization, Kumi, Uganda
The International
Child Welfare Organization is a non-profit charity operating 9
orphanages and 23 camps in north eastern Uganda, an area severely
ravaged by wars during which many children were trapped and others
were abducted. The organization was formed in 1989 to rescue the
vulnerable children including those that are orphaned, abandoned,
displaced, abused, refugees, poverty stricken, living on the
streets, juvenile delinquents, school drop-outs, or disabled. In
all, 23,567 children are currently being served. To feed the
children and to teach them gardening skills, the organization would
like to establish 467 gardens distributed over its service area. The
chief extension worker has a degree in agriculture and has a crew of
16 extension workers who would teach the children the necessary
skills in the process of creating the gardens. In addition to
requesting seeds, the organization has assembled a list of equipment
that is needed for gardening, bicycles that are needed for extension
worker transportation and equipment for keeping records and
documenting results. While details of the seeds required and the
total cost of seed, equipment and shipping remain to be defined, the
total is likely to exceed $25,000 and neither the International
Child Welfare Organization nor Seed Programs Incorporated has funds
to cover this urgent need.
Urgent Need in Liberia:
Liberia is a country of 3.5 million
people located on the west coast of Africa. It was founded in 1847 by
former slaves and free black people from the United States. While
poverty and bouts of corruption have been recurring issues, the country
enjoyed relative stability until 1980 when a coup by a faction of the
military ousted the elected government. There followed over 20 years of
dictatorial rule and civil war during which hundreds of thousands people
were killed and the economy was devastated. That period culminated in
the brutal regime of Charles Taylor who is currently on trial in The
Hague for crimes against humanity committed under his leadership. Taylor
was driven from the country in 2003 by West African and U.N. troops and
a new freely elected government took office in Liberia in 2005. The
current government has the daunting task of rebuilding the country and
its economy. The current Gross Domestic Product per capita is only $500
and 80% of the population lives on less than $1.25 per day. There is a
flood of returning refugees and internally displaced citizens, many of
them children. While the economy relies heavily on subsistence farming,
there is a chronic lack of quality planting seeds and a lack of the
training required to create an efficient system of agriculture and a
sustainable food supply. The following request has been received from
Liberia:
Church Aid
Incorporated, Brewerville, Liberia
Church Aid
Incorporated (CAI) has been involved since 1998 in small skills
training, micro-credit, literacy training and agriculture among
persons displaced by the civil wars. The organization has become
accredited by the government of Liberia and through grants from the
World Council of Churches has trained staff in techniques of rural
development and food production. In a pilot project with Seed
Programs Incorporated, financed by Church World Service, CAI
obtained 50,000 packets of vegetable seeds and distributed them
along with training in parts of Liberia. In view of the need and
impressed with the project, the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf,
personally granted duty–free status to the seed shipment. This
successful project demonstrated the ability of CAI to manage the
distribution of seed and provide agricultural training but also
showed that the scope of the need is enormous -- a much larger
project spread over several years will be necessary to help
returning citizens rebuild their communities and become
self-sufficient in food production. In consultation with Seed
Programs Incorporated, CAI has outlined a three year project in
which they would distribute 500,000 packets of seed the first year,
1 million packets of seed the second year and 1.5 million packets of
seed the third year. The project would cover over 100,000 individual
subsistence farmers and at least 500 institutional and community
gardens. It would provide tool kits, training in all facets of
gardening and instruction in the basics of nutrition and health.
Plans focus on first meeting immediate needs then creating a
sustainable food supply system through development of seed banks,
seed micro franchises, and produce marketing systems to enable
individuals to purchase future planting seed from the sale of excess
produce. The proposed project is comprehensive with immediate
actions, long term goals and follow-through; however, one large
piece is missing – none of the organizations involved has the
resources to fund it.
What Rotary Can Do:
Last year the Rotary Club of Mountain
City, Tennessee partnered with the Rotary Club of Kampala, Uganda to
provide seed and gardening training to two orphanages in Uganda serving
1600 children. The success of the project has been well documented and
overwhelming. We believe that this project can be replicated on an even
larger scale. It may be possible for some Rotary Clubs to deal with one
of the Uganda requests in its entirety by partnering with a Uganda Club
(there are 62 of them) and obtaining a noncompetitive Rotary Foundation
matching grant. There are three Rotary Clubs in Liberia (two in the
capital city of Monrovia and one in the southern coastal town of Harper
City) which could be partners but the scope of the Liberian project
would likely exceed what could be covered by a Rotary Foundation
matching grant. However, all of these requests are ripe for the pooling
of resources from multiple Rotary Clubs. There are also competitive
Health, Hunger and Humanity Grants available from the Rotary Foundation.
In any case, members of The Rotary Club of North Mecklenburg County, NC
are continuing to "Sow Seeds to Fight World Hunger" and will help with
the definition of projects and pooling of resources with others in the
Rotary family.
If your Club (or
group of Clubs) is interested in supporting these Ugandan and Liberian
needs, please contact us as noted below and we will work with you to set
up a project.
Contact: Jim Lang,
Rotary Club of North Mecklenburg County
Phone:
704-564-7126
e-mail: jflang@bellsouth.net
We look forward to
working with you in Rotary service!
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