Open Source Bread

Description

Adrien Labaeye:

"The Free the Seeds campaign of OpenSourceSeeds was recently launched in Berlin featuring bread made of an open-source wheat variety called Convento C..

Convento C. is an organically bred population of wheat which means that there is a high level of genetic diversity within the plants making the wheat particularly robust against diseases and extreme weather conditions. Convento C. was bred by Dr Hartmut Spieß of the Dottenfelderhof, Bad Vilbel, Germany.

At the moment of its public release, Convento C. was equiped with an open-source seed licence as a way to prevent patents and protect the variety so it be used by everyone (with privatisation forbidden as part of the licence agreement).

The official launch of the campaign in November featured a panel discussion with each actor involved (breeder, farmer, miller, bakers and consumers) and a bread-tasting of breads from the four bakeries using Convento C. to demonstrate the high quality of foods based on this wheat.

Adrien Labaeye from OpenSourceSeeds and member of the Community Economies Research Network (CERN) says that the open-source bread “is made with at least 80 per cent flour from a wheat that has been protected from any form of private appropriation thanks to the open source seeds license. In other words, a bread that is Monsanto free!” (https://www.communityeconomies.org/news/open-source-bread)