The California Seed Exchange Democracy Act will be up for a vote in the State Senate Agriculture Committee on June 21. We need your help to pass this bill to legalize seed sharing!

The CA Seed Exchange Democracy Act (AB 1810, Levine) will update California's state seed law so that seed libraries and other forms of noncommercial seed sharing are given the clear legal space to operate.

The bill amends the California Seed Law to ensure that seed libraries, and other forms of noncommercial seed sharing activities, are not subject to the same labeling, testing, and permitting requirements that apply to large-scale commercial seed enterprises.

What's a seed library? Why do we need a law to protect them? Watch this video to learn more.

The bill makes two main changes to existing law to achieve this goal: First, it redefines the term "sell" so that noncommercial seed sharing cannot be interpreted as "selling" seed, which triggers the labeling, testing, and permitting requirements. Second, it enables noncommercial seed sharing by removing these activities from the scope of the law's labeling, testing, and permitting requirements.

For more background on this issue, see our Save Seed Sharing campaign page or check out Edible East Bay's in-depth article and video about the national campaign to save seed sharing.

Will you help us pass this bill? Find a list of talking point and the phone number for the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee here. Prefer to write a letter? Great! Find a template here and send your letter to [email protected]. We'll send it to Sacramento for you. Yes, you can definitely both write a letter and make phone calls!