The Foundation ‘Alica’ was founded in 2021. The main goal is knowledge-based encouragement, stimulation, development, improvement and promotion of conservation...
Green Network of Activist Groups (ZMAG) is an organization that brings together organic gardeners, practitioners of applicable technologies and eco-building,...
Members of the Network can be legal or natural persons.
Legal persons are group entities and stakeholders:
Associations and organizations for saving seeds, farmers’ associations, institutions and other organizations that accept the goals of the Network.
Natural persons are the founders of the Network and other natural persons:
Breeders, scientists, farmers, gardeners, who agree with the goal and participate in the activities of the Network.
Members of the Network can be regular members and associate members
Regular members are founders and legal persons.
Associated members are other natural persons who join the Network in order to participate in the realizationof the Network’s goal, and can participate in the Assembly session without the right to vote.
Kostas Koutis is an organic farmer, plant breeder and researcher in Volos, Greece. He holds a MSc and PhD in organic plant breeding . He was actively involved in the Ecological Farming and Agrobiodiversity movements since 1990’s . Ιn 1991 was co-founder of the Workshop of Ecological Practice, an NGO in Thessaloniki for organic agriculture and plant genetic resources conservation which was active untill 2000. In 2004 he initiated and co- founded AEGILOPS non profit, a Network for Biodiversity and Ecology in Agriculture.
AEGILOPS’ purpose is to conserve heritage varieties and promote organic farming. From 1995 untill now he coordinates conservation programmes for community seed banking and restoration of cereal, vegetable and fruit heritage varieties. From 2022 he is, also, co founder of Balkan Seed Network Association . He believes that the enforcement of European agrobiodiversity movement is of major priority and, as well as, the acknowledgement of the role of peasants and community seed banks on resilience and security of food systems.
Gordana Djurić
Secretary
Biography
Gordana Đurić is a full professor of Horticulture and Genetic Resources Preservation at the University of Banja Luka’s Faculty of Agriculture. With over 35 years of experience, she has held various leadership roles, including Vice-Rector for Research and Development and director of multiple institutes and laboratories focused on horticulture and genetic resources. She has published over 170 scientific works and remains an active researcher and educator.
Internationally, she serves as Bosnia and Herzegovina’s National Focal Point for the ABS Nagoya Protocol and plant genetic resources with the FAO. She is also engaged in the European Cooperation Programme for Plant Genetic Resources. Beyond academia, she chairs Foundation Alica, promoting agrobiodiversity and rural development, and is a co-founder and secretary of the Balkan Seed Network Association.
Ivana Radović
Member
Biography
Ivana Radović is a scientist from the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade, Serbia. Her scientific work is oriented toward the field of plant physiology, plant resistance to abiotic stress (drought) and fruit quality. She is a co-founder of the NGO Ecological movement “Frame of life”. In the same organization she established the first Community Seed Bank in Serbia. She tries to connect more science with local communities and to promote traditional varieties through this initiative.
Initiative founded small citizen science lab, which can be used by community members for basic fruit quality analysis and characterization of traditional varieties of fruits, vegetables and cereals. She coordinated several citizen science projects, including project “Citizens for SDG 15.1” funded by IMPETUS, which got honorary mention of the EU prize for citizen science. She believes that communities should be involved more in decision-making processes and that farmers should have greater role in genetic conservation resources. From 2022 she is a co founder of Balkan Seed Network Association.
Lavdosh Ferruni
Member
Biography
Lavdosh Ferruni is the co-founder and executive director of the Organic Agriculture Association (OAA) in Albania, established in 1997. He has been a prominent environmental activist, advocating for sustainable rural development and environmental protection. Ferruni has played a key role in promoting organic farming practices and preserving agrobiodiversity in the Balkans. Under his leadership, the OAA has supported the creation of farmers’ groups and marketing channels for organic products. He has been actively involved in environmental advocacy, participating in campaigns against environmental degradation and promoting the conservation of natural resources.
Ferruni has also contributed to policy discussions, assisting the government in formulating laws and agricultural policies based on sustainable development principles. Through his efforts, he has raised public awareness about the importance of organic agriculture and environmental conservation in Albania. His work continues to influence debates on sustainable development and environmental policies in the country.
Nation:
Albania
Name:
Association for plant genetic resources (APGR)
The Association of Plant Genetic Resources is an Albanian organization focused on the protection and sustainable use of plant genetic resources and the integration of this system in EU networks. APGR, is a non-profit organization created on 20.05.2010, by a group of professors and experts in the field of agriculture and plant genetics.
The goal of this organization is to raise the awareness of the society, the policy makers and the farmers on the importance of recognition, preservation and use of the autochthonous plant varieties as an important element for sustainable development and a safe instrument to increase the benefits for its users and the whole society. To achieve this objective, the organization is based on a close collaboration with participants from the scientific research and academic fields, as well as with farmers and other partners operating in this field.
OAA was established on 13 June 1997, by a group of 22 agricultural specialists, academicians and farmers. The roots of membership are farmers and groups of farmers, who are already organic or becoming organic. Also, members are university teachers, researchers, businessmen and other individuals involved or willing to join the organic movement in Albania. The office of OAA is in Tirana. OAA has a broad network of experts in agriculture and rural development all over the country, who are activated according to their expertise.
OAA is a distinguished organisation in the country for lobbying, especially in the direction of sustainable rural development policies in the country, but also in environment protection.
The Austrian association ARCHE NOAH was established in 1990 as an initiative of heirloom gardeners, farmers and journalists, concerned with the future of seeds and heirloom varieties.
ARCHE NOAH responds to the loss of agrobiodiversity with a positive vision and numerous activities – such as workshops and events for the broader public, the maintenance of a Community Seed Bank and public demonstration gardens, the production and dissemination of seeds, political campaigns and participatory breeding activities.
All of us can contribute to more diversity through cultivation of threatened varieties in our gardens and on farms, through consumer awareness and political commitment.
This attitude connects 17.000 members involved with ARCHE NOAH today.
The Foundation ‘Alica’ was founded in 2021. The main goal is knowledge-based encouragement, stimulation, development, improvement and promotion of conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity and traditional knowledge and practices and development of agroecology in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Our mission is strengthens sustainable family farming through agroecology as a holistic movement, practice and science that strives to reconcile agriculture and local communities with natural processes and preservation of agrobiodiversity for the common benefit of nature and livelihoods.
Our vision is envisions diverse, fairness and equitable food and agricultural systems based in food sovereignty and rooted in nature and culture. Food sovereignty is the human right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and right’s the people to define their own food and agriculture systems.
Green Network of Activist Groups (ZMAG) is an organization that brings together organic gardeners, practitioners of applicable technologies and eco-building, permaculture designers, researchers of equitable social models of organization and equal interpersonal relationships, and environmental activists. ZMAG’s Community Seed Bank was founded in 2018 on the Recycled Estate in Vukomerić. It aims to contribute to the strengthening and improvement of the local seed system and the preservation of the greatest possible diversity of cultivated plants, with an emphasis on traditional and indigenous varieties.
The Community Seed Bank is designed as an informal and locally managed institution owned by its members, open to the public, food producers, small-scale farmers, gardeners and consumers. We pay great attention to education, raising awareness and sharing knowledge about the importance of preserving local varieties, as well as promoting the sovereignty of seeds and food.
Network for Biodiversity and Ecology in Agriculture
AEGILOPS is non govermental organization founded in 2014whose main aims are: i)to sonserve heritage varieties and traditional agricultural knowledge and to restore landrace varieties into cntemporary agricultural practice in ways that benefit comunity, ii) to develop plant varieties adapted to local organic production which utilize the benefits of localy adapted genetic resources for ecological agriculture, iii) to stenghten the role of the farmers in conservation of genetic resources as well as to protect their rights in taking part in the management and benefits of agrobiodiversity.
FABIA CSB is founded in 2019 in North Macedonia with the main aim to support the idea from Prospecierara, Arche Noah and Sativa-Rheinau and to save the last seed diversity from our country and to keep the story that our generation has keep it.
The main aims of our organization is conservation, maintaining and promotion of the agrobiodiversity, establishing Community seed bank and developing national network for conservation and promotion of the agrobiodiversity.
Formed in 2015, in Mustafino, Eko-Ilinden focuses on promoting the development of the organic agricultural sector in the Ovche Pole region in North Macedonia. Eko-Ilinden pursues two main objectives. The first is forming farmer-networks oriented to producing organic agricultural products for export. The second is social entrepreneurship and consists in providing incentives and support to small farmers to work collaboratively in producing high-quality organic goods for the domestic market.
Nation:
Romania
Name:
Eco Ruralis
Eco Ruralis is a Romanian association of peasants and small-scale farmers, established in 2009. With over 20,000 members nationwide, most farms < 1 up to 100 hectares, the association works to defend peasant rights and promote agroecology. More than 65% of members are women, and over 40% are aged 18–40. Peasants seeds systems are at the heart of Eco Ruralis’ work.
Through seed saving, exchanges, and farmer-to-farmer education, Eco Ruralis strengthens biodiversity, local resilience, and farmers’ autonomy. The association also advocates for the recognition of peasant seed systems at national and EU levels, challenging restrictive seed laws and corporate control over seeds. By protecting seeds, Eco Ruralis protects the foundation of sustainable, just, and culturally rooted food systems.
The community seed bank Casa Semintelor has been developed under the Transition Romania Association since 2018. Nowadays the collection contains more than 500 varieties of local and traditional seeds. Every year some of them are propagated, multiplied on our land and garden situated close to Bucharest, through permaculture, organic and traditional eco friendly methods. The purpose of Casa Semintelor Seed Bank is for the traditional varieties not to be lost, but to be found again in the people’s garden.
Ecological movement “Frame of life” is a NGO from Western Serbia founded in 2013. The main goals and activities are oriented towards agrobiodiversity and wildlife biodiversity conservation, and sustainable agriculture. Organization is focused on education, research and good practices that improve community inclusion in decision-making processes. In 2019 Ecological movement founded Community Seed Bank, which saves and promotes traditional crop landraces, but also traditional knowledge and agricultural practices which are in balance with nature.
Organization connects the local community with different stakeholders, but mostly with experts in different areas of science. NGO is oriented towards community-based approaches and promotes use of citizen science in activities related to nature and biocultural heritage.
