When people think of Lotta Hitschmanova, they most often associate her with humanitarian assistance. But USC in Lotta’s day was much more than this. The organization evolved under her leadership.

Lotta also gave support to agriculture throughout her career. As she put it in a 1974 interview:

“The USC has always been an immensely practical agency and to us food is the number one requirement of man. We have focussed on the need of food … teaching how to produce more and better food practically since the beginning of
the USC 29 years ago.” Click here to read more of Lotta’s writings.

Over several decades Lotta and the USC helped agricultural projects in Greece and India, provided emergency seed support to farmers in Vietnam, and funded seedling production in Indonesia. It’s no wonder that following her death, Agriculture Canada released a new oat seed variety called AC Lotta in 1991.

Today, USC’s largest, most-widespread program is called Seeds of Survival. It’s all about helping farmers to stay on their land, to grow more food for their families, to preserve the environment and to enhance biodiversity.

It started modestly enough, as a “seed rescue” operation after the big droughts in Ethiopia in the 1980s and has evolved into a global, farmer-led movement for environmentally sound agriculture – supporting women, small-scale farmers and youth in 12 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.