SeedChange volunteer and advocate Karen Farmer receives Global Citizen Award

February 20, 2020
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“Being a global citizen requires continual consideration of the impact one’s life has on others beyond one’s immediate community and country.”

Karen Farmer (centre) receives the Global Citizen Award from Jessica Wood (left), the executive director of the Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation, and Dr. Priscilla Settee, board member of SeedChange (right).

At various times of the year, you can find Karen Farmer with her hands in the dirt at her local community garden, growing varieties of rare tomatoes to share with the Saskatoon Seed Library she founded. You can also find her in schools, teaching and enlisting the help of children to plant gardens and fill seed envelopes for local Seedy Saturday events. And you can find her giving countless presentations to the public about the importance of saving seeds and supporting the work of farmers around the world.

We have been fortunate to count on Karen Farmer for more than a decade as a tireless SeedChange volunteer. She’s acted as a board member, a local representative with the Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation, and an enthusiastic organizer who put her wide range of skills and talents to use to engage with her community in innovative ways.

Karen Farmer, speaking to members of the public at one of many Seedy Saturday exhibits over the years.

No matter who she is talking to, Karen finds a way to excite and empower others to join her in growing a better world. She’s helped her fellow community members connect the dots between “think global” and “act local” by encouraging them to get their own hands dirty, by saving good seeds and growing good food, as a way to preserve biodiversity and improve food security. At the same time, her approach invites others to notice their role as global citizens in a world where the food system means that half of the world’s 2 billion small-scale farmers live under the poverty line.

As Karen says, “Global citizenship requires us to educate others about inequity and injustice. We need to encourage actions that recognize and build on our profound interconnection with others.”

Karen Farmer with one the many seed envelopes she has helped fill and share with her community as founder of the Saskatoon Seed Library.

We are incredibly grateful at SeedChange to know and work with Karen Farmer, and are overjoyed to see her enormous contributions recognized in her home province and beyond through the 2020 Global Citizen Award, from the Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation.

Congratulations and thank you Karen!