Graines del Pais is distributor of organic aromatic, vegetable and flower seeds. The comapny was founded by five local seed producers in 2005 in Bellegarde du Razès in our own Aude Department in the deepest South of France. Graines del Pais work with 27 organic seed producers throughout France, I am pleased to see 9 of them are based in tha Languedoc Roussillon and 7 of those are in the Aude.
Their approach is a radical departure from the usual seed distributor. The usual profit sharing arrangement between producer and distributor is around I part for the producer and between 200 and 500 parts for the distributor. At Graines del Pais a full third of revenues is returned to the producers, a third is used to pay the staff, and a third used to cover marketing and distribution costs. An annual producers and share holder meeting is held to go through the accounts in the spirit of full openness.
As well as a firm commitment to a proper share for producers they are also committed to the organic philosophy of supporting biodiversity, with a strong emphasis on traditional seed varieties selected for their robust growth and taste, They do no work with hybrid varieties.
Graines del Païs: le métier d’artisan semencier from Graines del Païs on Vimeo.
The full range of seeds can be bought direct from their website here Graines del Pais
The full Graines del Pais catagogue can be downloaded here Graines del Pais catalogue (PDF)
Graines del Pais seeds are available throughout France a list of the distributors can be found here Graines del Pais Distributors
Here at the Domaine de Montrouch we use a wide variety of suppliers to ensure we have as full a range of aromatic as possible, so for the majority of our annuals we use Essembio and AgroSemes, they are geared up for professional clients and provide seeds in quantities, however Graines del Pais has a much larger range of organic aromatics and flowers than these large suppliers and are a very useful source for hard to find organic seeds, and we like to support local colleagues where possible.
