Seeds are an indispensable basis of life!

Seed is a human right and your birthright to your being!

For thousands of years it was a matter of course to breed new plant varieties, to store them, to spread them again and to exchange them with friends or acquaintances and also to sell them on.

It was not uncommon for the processes of breeding to take centuries to adapt the plants to the optimal local environmental conditions and to develop our current well-known cultivated seeds of old and interesting varieties.

Until well into the 20th century, countless farmers and gardeners took it for granted to work together on agricultural diversity and the preservation of heirloom seeds.

During the 1950s, however, the "Green Revolution" developed with the pretext of food security and brought the first high-yield varieties to the market. The chemical and seed industry justified this by fighting world hunger, which is even more present today than ever before (according to statistics, one person dies of hunger every 3 seconds).
In the 1980s, "green genetic engineering" was born and began to spread. This involves intervention in the genetic material of plants using laboratory methods. Genetically modified plants have been cultivated commercially since 1996. Around 12% of the world's arable land is already planted with genetically modified crops.

What was once a harmonious and logically understandable process in harmony with nature is devastating for humans, animals and nature due to the uncontrollability and unpredictability of "green genetic engineering".

While in 1985 there were about 7,000 seed companies worldwide, each accounting for about 1% of the world market, by 2013 there were already 10 seed companies controlling 85% of the world market. 95% of today's vegetable seed in Europe alone comes from just 5 seed companies.

Well-known seed companies in Europe are Monsanto [Bayer] (USA), Bayer Crop Sc. (D) and Syngenta (CH). The strategies of these corporations are to buy up other companies and to develop varieties with high pesticide and fertilizer requirements, so-called "hybrids". Hybrid seeds would show significant changes in properties if sown again in the 2nd generation. So that they stand out enormously from the original variety and no longer show any previous qualities.
This has resulted in a complete fundamental dependency of farmers, gardeners and all people on the seed companies.

According to estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States (FAO), 75% of agricultural diversity has already been lost.

People around the world have already started initiatives and demonstrations to defend themselves against the privatization of seeds.

Due to the monopolarization of the world seed market, 10 seed companies now dominate around 85 percent of the world market and decide what we are all allowed to eat.

The significant increasing restrictions on plant varieties or even bans are still increasing today. According to the Seed Act, seed may currently only be marketed in EU countries if the specific variety is registered and entered in a list of varieties.
The prerequisites for registering varieties are "uniformity", "stability" and they must be clearly "distinguishable" from already registered varieties, i.e. economically (the so-called DUS creteries [engl.]). Taste, healthy ingredients and variety play no role.

Varieties that are protected by the "Variety Protection Act", "patent protection" or as "biologically patented hybrid varieties" are no longer common property. These may no longer be freely used or duplicated by persons for their own purposes.

Due to this orientation of the corporations, which many do not yet know, our beloved types of vegetables and cottage garden flowers are threatened with extinction in addition to our native animal species and wild plants.

In view of this situation, it is an absolute necessity for us to independently obtain old cultivated seeds and heirloom seeds and to disseminate them through our online shop or through market visits.

Together we can change that! This is one of the reasons Benjis was founded. We inform, bring people together, build independent infrastructures together, remind them of their potential and connect us to one big family. A family that acts in the interest of nature and life and makes a fundamental difference in the world.