Season 5: Saving Ireland's seed and apple heritage

This week on the Organic Matters Podcast, we speak to Elaine Bradley from the Irish Seed Savers Association based in Clare. It works to protect and preserve Ireland’s traditional seed and heritage apple varieties. Elaine talks about the Association’s activities, which are based on practising conservation by use, with their seed and gene bank acting as a living resource and safety deposit box for our food heritage now and into the future. She explains how the Association safeguards and promotes Ireland’s national collection of heritage apple varieties, many of which were nearly forgotten but have been saved by their work over the years. Varieties are produced and sold on-site, and the team also works with communities to reintroduce heritage orchards into public spaces through their Orchard Way initiative. Elaine also touches on their more recent project to establish a farmer seed network to further facilitate the exchange of heritage and organic seeds.