Peliti Seed Bank

Dear friends,

I am Panagiotis Sainatoudis the founder and general co-ordinator of the Peliti Community from Greece.

At the age of 22 in my home village I came across a corn like this very one, that I hold in my hand right now ! That really changed my life!

I started my journey with no money at all, travelling on foot or hitchhiking all over Greece, searching for farmers that kept their own seeds. In a few years I concentrated more than 1200 species of traditional seeds that were endangered.

Greece is one of the most important countries worldwide as far as the diversity and wealth of plant genetic material is concerned, since around 50% (fifty per cent) of the plants of all Europe and 80% (eighty per cent) of those of the whole Balkan peninsula can be found in the country.

In 1995 I realized that my mission is the preservation of local varieties of plants. So I started Peliti with really no money, no infrastructure, only led by a passion. Today Peliti has fourteen local teams in different areas of Greece and one team in Bulgaria. And it is getting bigger by the time ! Every single team has its own seed bank, while there is a central seed collection in Peliti’s base in Paranesti of Drama in Northern Greece. For this collection we ask for your help, so that we can create a Seed Bank.

We give out the seeds for free and up to now we have given seeds to more than 130.000 (a hundred and thirty thousand) cultivators. We give out seeds in public, we create seedbeds, we also work a lot with schools, among other many activities.

We believe that every single one of us is very important in this cause, regardless of one’s economic condition or political position, that every one of us is a part of the solution since we all are at the same time co-creators of the situations we live in.

Our ancestors’ seeds have reached us hand by hand and we have an obligation to give them to our children. This is the key to Freedom and Democracy. It is an alive part of our civilization ! Therefore, we will not obey laws that deprive us of our very right to keep saving them, planting them and freely exchanging them.

With love from Peliti.

Panagiotis Sainatoudis

Piraeus Bank

IBAN: GR10 0171 1960 0061 9804 0030 332

SWIFT-BIC: PIRBGRAA

Beneficiary: Alternative Community Peliti