From an idea that started from a collaboration between ARI – Associazione Rurale Italiana and a number of local associations, the Monastero Seed House is a project that was born from the bottom up, that is, from the grassroots, made up of farmers, amateurs and anyone who cares about natural and agricultural biodiversity and food sovereignty. Being able to exercise the ancient wisdom of seed selection, seed free trade and the preservation of local genotypes is one of the priorities of this seed house. Moreover, the dissemination and training exercise on the topics of biodiversity, food sovereignty, critical and conscious consumption, and food education allow this structure to represent a point of resilience and reference for peasant agriculture and for the preservation of eco- and agro-systems in the area.
The Seed House wants to promote diversified learning modalities based on dialogue, discussion and conviviality: to create an environment in which all participants can, through the sharing of their knowledge and experience, build a common path to serve the real needs of the Seed House community.
Among the collective and public initiatives we have activated there are Seed Exchange, Sowing, Reaping and Threshing Days, ritual appointments to gradually bring the community closer together, involving local inhabitants and farmers, artists, activists and researchers. During the last Seed Exchange Day event in March 2024, we launched a project on the bread chain that will take off next autumn with the sowing of the Aleppo evolutionary mix, developed by agricultural genetics expert Savalatore Ceccarelli, implementing it with local grain varieties. The idea stems from the discussion with some conventional farmers and millers in the area on the problem of the poor bread-making capacity of the wheat flour produced in our area, which is mainly due to the fact that the agrarian consortia and trade unions are pushing for the sowing of biscuit varieties, which are in great demand by the industry in the province, but which have no outlet on alternative markets (small mills that produce flour to be sold in shops or at markets/fairs) due to the low strength index of the flour.
The Seeds Mill
House of Seeds project
The House of Seeds is a collective experience in Monastero Bormida, in the province of Alessandria. The group that undertook this initiative is made up of farmers, peasants and inhabitants of the Bormida Valley and is aimed at all those who wish to share a path of mutualism to contrast the progressive loss of agricultural varieties caused by agro-industrial and monocultural models. The seed house recalls widespread experiences in rural communities on every continent, as a means of preserving and disseminating peasant, local, traditional seeds. We speak of peasant seeds to indicate that they have been handed down from peasant to peasant, to emphasise the connection of peasant communities as communities of practices around seeds consisting of heterogeneous varieties produced by natural selection and renewal methods. They are part of practices necessary for the survival and development of rural communities.
In recent years, we have promoted experiential activities where, starting from a more theoretical contextualisation, we have arrived at experimentation in the field, right in front of the Mill building, and thus at the direct involvement of the people concerned: in the practices of preserving traditional techniques sustainably adapted to contemporary times; in the selection and experimentation of native crops that have almost disappeared also due to the prevailing agro-industrial models based on the standardisation of seeds; in contact with the land and nature. Activities that raise awareness of an environmentally sustainable future (promotion of organic farming and biodiversity, right to health and protection of the landscape), that develop the capacity for self-determination in the field of food sovereignty and that create informal mutualistic networks.
The Seed House project is located in a disused and well-preserved Mill that is an example of craft archaeology, along the banks of the Bormida river. The mill certainly already existed in 1664, as it can be identified in the first land register of the Monastero community, drawn up in that year. Its shape was different from today: it roughly corresponded to the first two floors of today’s building, built in stone, and its milling mechanism was different, as it worked with millstones driven by a water wheel: a canal, created by a lock on the Bormida river, supplied the water necessary for the mill. In 1881, in this very Mill, owned at the time by Bartolomeo Monti, was born Augusto Monti, a writer and famous professor at the Liceo Classico D’Azeglio in Turin who was a strenuous opponent of the fascist regime. Some of his well-known pages are dedicated to the description of the mill and the human and village events linked to it.
The mill contains the well-preserved but unusable machinery that will become part of a municipal museum itinerary. In the meantime, during the Seed Exchange Days that we have organised over the years, we have conducted visits to the inside of the mill, making use of the information gathered in Caterina Lucarini’s university thesis on the recovery and musealisation of the Monastero mill and the valuable guidance of some former millers in the area.