
Network for a full life
Welcome to Benjis Online Shop
With your purchase you support a 100% independent, nature-oriented network based on holistic hereditary maintenance breeding in Portugal.
Our current Seeds assortment
Other offers from our network
Our regional network Partner
A network where you can realize your potential
For the benefit of all people, we receive and preserve old, rarely forgotten and special heritage seeds holistically in accordance with our natural principles with enthusiasm and joie de vivre.
We are also creating an independent network for various quality commodities in Portugal and helping others to realize their potential to regenerate the body and nurture the mind.
Due to the currently lived hierarchical system and the associated everyday conflicts, we also create a way of life where everyone lives with their potential and represents a pillar for community life. As a result, each individual is the necessary part of the community!
A new era needs new tools!
Together we live!
To change something on the outside, it has to start on the inside!
Life is like a canvas.
Every morning you can choose whether you want to continue painting on the old picture or start a new one.
For us, love is the unconditional interest in the growth of the other!
From our network
Special interesting informations
Market dates and open farm days
Benjis is present at the following current market dates:
- Sunday 2nd April, AZULA market in Lameiros.
- Saturday 1st April, São Martinho das Amoreiras Market. Market time: 9am until 4pm
- Sunday (date follow) April, Mercado Mira Market. Market time: 11am until 5pm
- Sunday 19th March, Sao Luis Feira da Alegria Market. Market time: 8am until 3pm
Dates for "Open Farm Day":
Possibly in the spring, summer and autumn of 2023 with an network market.
Pre-information will be announced in our Telegram group.
Follow these link: @Benjis Network
Opening hours
We are open daily from 11 am to 4 pm (except on market days). You are welcome to pick up your order at any time during this time. If this is not possible for you at this time, we can also make an individual appointment. Just write us an email.
We ask visitors to make an appointment so that we can also take the time for you.
Delivery information
We offer deliveries for seeds, carob powder and raisins with CTT for mainland Portugal.
The delivery costs are €6 for a package of up to 2 kg.
Orders with heavier weight will be divided into two separate shipments to save costs. If this is the case, we will contact you separately to discuss the delivery costs with you.
After completing your order, you will receive an order confirmation email from us with your tracking number.
Pick up information
Pick-up at:
Caixa Post 655-V
Vale de Milhos
8375-206 Sao Marcos da Serra
Faro district
Portugal
After completing your order, you will receive directions via email.
In addition, it is also possible to pick up your order in one of the markets specified by us.
Just write us another email with your order number and the market where you want to pick it up.
Markets we visit can be found above under "Market Dates"
Our network main location
The organisation of Benjis Network is located in Portugal in the north Algarve in São Marcos da Serra near the IC1 main road towards Ourique and Albufeira.
Tips for handling plants
Plants are living beings!
They are individuals and have very specific needs in order to unfold their potential.
You determine the growth of your plants!
But only if you know why!
Without knowing the causes we set, we will only experience success by accident.
And that has a significant impact on your self-sufficiency.
In order to change that, we are making our entire basic knowledge about sowing and planting, tree pruning and more available to you here.
So that you achieve the result you are striving for in a controlled and targeted manner.
You can find the "tips for handling plants" in the menu bar About us and more information or click on this link
Why seeds preservation
Why do we receive seeds?
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, encourage them 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.
Support of nature
Nature offers us a diverse material basis of life which we should carefully preserve from our own well-being!
As a result, in the future, if we are able, we will buy several large areas of land in Portugal to preserve and promote biodiversity.
We will also offer workshops in small nature villages to teach how to deal with nature. More will happen when the manifestation has taken place.
Network
From perception we recognize that life only works together!
We mesh existing networks with newly created ones to enable an independent physical infrastructure for our basic necessities. From this we give other people the opportunity to network and offer their homemade products and individual services. Together we are creating Benjis, an opportunity to use your individually desired services or to receive goods in a natural way in a homemade high quality. Due to industrial development, this network also enables us to preserve our old, rare, forgotten and special cultural heirloom seeds in sufficient quantity and quality and to support other people in the process.
A stable network, as shown by nature, consists of several independent networks. Nature shows us how, and even then people lived harmoniously together in this sense.
We divide this into 3 network areas for a better overview. Local, regional and global.
We live for it!
Use the links to discover or regional network or global network offers.
Sustainability
Sustainability is a necessity!
All people in the network rely on sustainable packaging. This is not always possible immediately due to the current life situation. But we are rapidly striving to equip compostable packaging with our organic and homemade products.
Why not let nature completely compost the packaging after 180 days!?
For example:
Compostable packaging made of kraft paper, bamboo or bio-foil
- Made from renewable raw materials
- Food safe
- Compostable and recyclable
- Packaging is 100% sustainable and plastic-free.
For us and the future of our children, we will make this possible together in the network.
Community and togetherness makes it possible!