Our Projects
The core of our work is and always will be the collection and conservation of Palestinian seeds. This process begins with building trust and nurturing relationships with the stewards of our seeds, many of whom are the last farmers in family lines of agriculturists stretching back centuries or even millennia. It involves not only preserving the seeds themselves — which we do primarily at our central Seed Library in Battir — but also regularly regenerating them by growing them out and saving the next generation. In Palestine, we mostly do this in Beit Jala and Battir, under the direction of PHSL staff in the West Bank, but we also grow seeds across Palestine with the help of our many beloved partner farmers.
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As life in Palestine itself becomes more and more constrained and restricted due to the Israeli government’s campaign of ethnic cleansing, we are increasingly active in the diaspora. In Latin America, Jamaica, Europe, and the United States, participants in our Seed Protectors Project work to maintain Palestinian seeds from PHSL and other sources (including seeds that may only now exist in diaspora communities, taken by growers who emigrated from Palestine many decades ago), providing a critical backup supply of our precious seeds. Our partners with Philadelphia-based Experimental Farm Network (EFN) help us to access Palestinian seeds held in US government seed-banks, allowing for the return of these long-lost relatives back to our family. EFN, along with Hudson Valley Seed Company and Truelove Seeds, also offer Palestinian seeds to their customers in the US and around the world, helping to provide an additional fail-safe measure by taking what were very recently exceptionally rare seeds and making them much more widely available.
We are grateful to everyone, in Palestine and around the world, working alongside us to ensure that Palestinian seeds continue to exist — and not only for Palestinians, but for the whole world. Our seeds come from a hot and dry climate, so they are already adapted to the sort of ecosystems that are increasingly common as the planet heats up and existing ecosystems are destroyed. As the climate continues to change and landscapes continue to be degraded, Palestinian seeds may thus prove to be of vital importance to humanity itself.
PHSL is an interactive art and agriculture project that also aims to start conversations, exchange knowledge, and share the stories of food and farming that have been buried away, waiting to sprout like seeds.
