Seed fairs fostering resilience
Revitalising the Muyu Raymi seed fair has formed a cultural space to exchange native seeds resilient to climate change and celebrate Kichwa identity.
Women showcase products and exchange seeds at the 2025 Muyu Raymi seed fair (Photo: Johanna Andrea Alarcón Álvarez)
In the Ecuadorian Andes, seeds are the source of life, culture and food sovereignty. For the Kichwa Indigenous Peoples of the Cotacachi in Imbabura province, the conservation of agrobiodiversity within the Amazonian Chakra system – designated by the FAO as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) – depends on an invaluable cultural practice: the exchange of native seeds.
However, organising and sustaining a space to exchange seeds requires logistical and financial capacities that have historically been scarce for rural organisations.
Forest and Farm Facility activities
To address this, the Union of Peasant and Indigenous Organizations of Cotacachi (UNORCAC) and its Central Women’s Committee decided to revitalise and scale up the traditional Muyu Raymi seed fair to ensure farming families had equitable access to seeds with high climate resilience.
Since 2020, Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) support to UNORCAC has strengthened the value chains of smallholder family farming and empowered the Central Women’s Committee to conserve the Amazonian Chakra system, channelling the necessary resources to revitalise the Muyu Raymi seed fair.
In August 2023 and 2025, the fair took place in La Matriz Park in Cotacachi. The fair now has four strategic sections designed to encourage the participation of all bio-enterprises supported by FFF:
- Exhibiting and exchanging native seeds
- Local culinary offerings
- Exhibitions of ancestral culinary heritage, and
- Spaces for bio-enterprises, eco businesses and handicrafts.
Significance of impact
The social reach of Muyu Raymi is massive and deeply inclusive. In 2023 and 2025, the fair directly benefited 600 Kichwa women in Cotacachi. At Muyu Raymi, women lead the exhibition, exchange and culinary heritage sections, positioning themselves as the true ‘guardians of the seeds’.
Young people from the communities also play a fundamental role in the coordination of, and logistical support for, the event.
FFF funding increased the event’s visibility and provided direct incentives to recognise the work of the seed guardians. It also funded branding tools such as the Chakra Andina Corporative Manual and the production of a documentary video (below).
Conclusion
Without FFF’s backing, it would have been difficult to mobilise the logistics and promotion necessary for an event of this scale with participation from bio-enterprises and eco-businesses from diverse regions of the country.
The Muyu Raymi fair has raised the political and social profile of the Central Women’s Committee and has become a space to showcase the Amazonian Chakra’s value-added products and the bio-enterprises of other organisations managing sustainable production models.
More than just an annual event, Muyu Raymi is a living cultural service that ensures that native seeds – and with them, climate resilience and Kichwa identity – continue to be used by and nourish future generations.
Further reading
News: Investing in biodiverse agriculture in Ecuador’s highlands: UNORCAC and the Santa Anita cooperative, IIED (2024)
Video: Feria Nacional de Semillas Muyu Raymi [Muyu Raymi National Seed Fair], FAO (2023)
News: Conserving agro-biodiversity through Indigenous chakra systems in the Andes, Forest and Farm Facility (2023)