This campaign has now closed
A unique insurance policy for the future of the nation’s food supply, conserving both our natural heritage and our national history
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Biodiversity makes our environment more fertile. The more plant genetic diversity we conserve, the greater the opportunities for innovation and growth in food production and the greater our options to cope with change. But the nation's biodiversity is being threatened – by marketing demand for vegetable conformity, EU legislation and climate change with its unpredictable seasons, pests and diseases. We believe traditional vegetable varieties play an essential part in conserving biodiversity and that home gardens make an important contribution to the conservation of indigenous, traditional, regional and old varieties of food crops. Through our Heritage Seed Library and our volunteer Seed Guardians, we are protecting over 800 traditional varieties of vegetable from extinction - Carruthers’ Purple Podded pea, Cherokee Trail of Tears climbing French bean and Long Green Buddha pepper to name just three. But, unless we can raise support to save the increasing number of heritage varieties coming under threat, we stand to lose crops that need time to ripen, are soft and juicy - many with wonderful flavours, unusual colour or shape - or are not this year’s fashion. We will lose varieties with local links and those that have cultural uses. We will lose those that have adapted to grow in prevailing conditions. We could even lose a supply of traditional plants with secondary metabolytes that may hold the key to a cure for a life-threatening disease such as cancer. Once lost, they are gone forever.