20. Seeds: The Life Keepers - with Milka Chepkorir Kuto

Mar 12, 2024

Milka Chepkorir Kuto, an expert in seed preservation, discusses the importance of preserving diverse seed varieties for food sovereignty and cultural identity. She emphasizes the role of women in seed saving programs and restoring indigenous food systems. The podcast explores the interconnectedness of traditional foods, seeds, and cultural preservation, highlighting the significance of ancestral knowledge and land stewardship in reviving traditional farming practices.

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ANECDOTE

Ancient Chestnut Seeds

In Switzerland, Alexa Permanish found chestnut seeds inside a fire-hollowed tree.
These seeds held knowledge from centuries past, symbolizing the enduring power of nature.

INSIGHT

Seed Control and Justice

The shift to hybrid seeds created dependency on global suppliers, impacting farmers' autonomy.
Seed freedom is a political act, reclaiming food sovereignty and indigenous rights.

ANECDOTE

Chirangani Hills Ecosystem

Milka Chepkorir Kuto describes her ancestral lands, the Chirangani Hills, as lush and vibrant.
The Sengwer people thrived on diverse resources like fruits, honey, and medicinal plants.

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Seeds. Memory keepers. Speckled time travellers. Capsules of deep, earth wisdom. To control seeds is to control life. To be a seed is to hold the genetic code of turning starlight into matter, of morphing your body into soft green tips that tremble in the wind and drink fire. There is a deep co-evolutionary relationship that exists in your bones, between humans, land, ecology, and seeds.

And we are losing them. An absence of flourishing seed systems directly correlates with a loss of cultural identity for thousands of communities around the world. Life for rural communities fractures. We’re losing our seed keepers. The freedom of seeds therefore becomes a political act of justice, on food sovereignty, indigenous rights, and restoring power back into the hands of farmers. So how does this rich history weave into the story of today’s guest?

Milka Chepkorir Kuto is an anthropologist and climate and human rights activist. She is a member of the Sengwer indigenous community of Kenya’s Rift Valley, and she has become a representative for her people in defending their land rights after violent evictions from their traditional lands. Milka is also a Coordinator of Defending Territories of Life at ICCA Consortium, and has worked the UN Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Her community is now working to revitalize people-land relationships through indigenous knowledge, and Milka works with the women to save and protect their ancestral ways and seed systems. As Milka speaks, you can feel in her spirit this visceral connection to place, story, food, culture, a weaving of seed, hand, heart, human, forest. Milka herself is a seed, a story keeper, a culture holder, an inspirational tie between ancestral knowing and the modern world.

Episode Website Link

Show Links:

Milka’s Crowdfunding Site for Lifeworlds listeners: “Help the Indigenous Sengwer Peoples of Kenya”

Revitalizing Sengwer People-Land Relationships

Seed savers network Kenya

Global Alliance for Future of Food

Open Seed Sharing

Earthed course: Saving Seeds for a Better Future

Will Bonsall, Scatterseed Project

Movie: SEED, The Untold Story

Gaia Foundation Seed Sovereignty

Seeds of Freedom Trilogy

Navdanya from Vandana Shiva

Music: Electric Ethnicity by Igor Dvorkin, Duncan Pittock & Ellie Kidd

Cover Photo by AI

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