The Seedbank, local seeds, local skills, local traditions

Every seed is a survival strategy. It carries within it the accumulated adaptation of a plant variety to a particular place, a particular climate, a particular set of conditions — generations of selection for germination timing, frost tolerance, drought resistance, and soil preference. Commercial plant breeding has in the last century replaced much of this diversity with high-yielding, standardised varieties suited to industrial production rather than local growing. That process has been effective at producing large quantities of food. It has also been effective at erasing the genetic diversity that underpins long-term food security.

Seed sovereignty — the right of communities and individuals to save, share, and use their own seeds — is a response to that loss. It doesn't require rejecting modern agriculture. It requires maintaining a parallel system: a distributed archive of genetic material held in community hands, available to anyone who wants to grow and adaptable over generations to conditions that are themselves changing rapidly.

Huntly's Seed Bank is part of that system. Operating across Aberdeenshire's library network and hosted at the Orbs Community Bookshop, the Huntly Seed Bank has a simple premise - you take what you need and if you can afford to you can make small donation. The Seed Bank curator chooses open-pollinated and heirloom variety seeds that she knows will grown in our environment. Users of the Seed Bank are then encouraged to save seed at the end of the season and share with friends and neighbours. The seeds stay in circulation, they accumulate local adaptation over time, and the knowledge of how to grow them stays in the community.

The Seed Bank originally came into being through a project with another local group but when that funding dried up, Dawn Mclachlan decided that the project was too important to simply fizzle out. Thanks to a partnership between Greener Huntly and One Seed Forward (a project supported by the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund.) We found funding, plant expertise, and an understanding of how growing can support mental health. Greener Huntly brought the community infrastructure and the network of local growers, seed savers, and library contacts.

The Huntly Seed Bank has now been running for over six years and the collection includes vegetables, herbs, and even edible flowers . The spring collection and seed potatoes are now available, offering varieties that include heritage types rarely found in garden centres and well-suited to growing conditions in this part of Scotland. The Huntly Seed Bank has gone from strength to strength and it's success has formed part of the model for rolling out further seed banks all over Aberdeenshire in 2026.

The broader aim, over time, is to build a seed stewardship programme: training local volunteers to collect, clean, and store seeds properly, creating a growing local collection of material adapted to north-east Scotland conditions. That programme is currently in development, and we're actively looking for people who want to be involved in shaping it.

Seed saving is not complicated. It is careful, attentive, and rewarding in the way that most careful work with living things is rewarding. And it is one of the simplest ways to contribute to the local resilience that Greener Huntly is trying to build.

If you have an interest in growing plants for seed - join our online growing hub and get tips and advice and become part of the conversation.