The Custodians Association intends to be the custodians of seeds for the next generations. They aim to give increasingly improverished small producer a new sense of hope and responsibility towards our eroding agrobiodiversity as a basis for healthful, tasty, and low-cost (low-input) food production that, in addition, protects both local economies and the environment. Their project supported by the GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP) relies on taking out inventories of landraces cultivated in 8 villages of the Balıkesir Ivrindi and Savastepe regions, encouraging a new appreciation for traditional farming practices, including seed exchanges, and developing of direct producer-consumer marketing opportunities for products from 8 villages of the Balıkesir ? Ivrindi and Savastepe region in nearby towns and cities.

In preliminary investigations in villages of the northwestern Anatolian (Balıkesir province) region chosen for the project. Some of the local products: local wheats (including, among others, a rare summer wheat) and rye; among leguminous types, a lentil said to have been bred from a vetch, a ?small chickpea? thought to be local, and various bean types; tomato types, including the ?fork tomato,? said to be especially delicous, but hard to find; among dried foods, walnut and chestnut; and a small number of plant types thought to be particularly local, including cowpeas (borulce) and a yellow-meated ?winter watermelon? with unusually long storage capacity. Many of these plant types are not irrigated, but are said to make initial growth with dew. Among lightly processed products that may be offered are dried yogurt soup, flour thickener, bulgur and flour. Bulgur/flour from local cereals may be produced from one of two local water-driven mills, one of which is currently being reconstructed.