‘They Kept Us Alive for Thousands of Years’: Could Saving Palestinian Seeds Also Save the World?

Vivien Sansour, founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, believes biodiversity could help feed an entire planet in crisis

The first year that the Hudson Valley Seed Company tried growing yakteen at their farm in upstate New York, the heirloom variety of Palestinian gourd quickly spread until its vines were sending their tendrils across a full acre of land. Born of a partnership with the artist, researcher and conservationist Vivien Sansour, that pilot plot was just one of many pieces of evidence supporting Sansour’s thesis: that saving Palestinian heirloom seeds could benefit not just Palestinians, but could help feed an entire planet in crisis.

Sansour is the founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, a project that began in 2016 to conserve Palestinian heritage and culture by saving heirloom seed varieties and telling the stories and history from which they emerged.

The project feels particularly urgent against the backdrop of Israel’s continuing bombing of Gaza, the “man-made” famine that aid groups warn is imminent there and the knowledge that last year was the hottest ever recorded.