Seed School, Part I

I've always been in awe of seeds, and never tire of the miracle by which these tiny things are planted into the soil and transformed into fruits and vegetables. So, when I found out about an opportunity to attend a week long series of classes collectively known as Seed School, I jumped at the chance. This innovative program was put on by a non-profit seed conservation organization called Native Seeds, and hosted by Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. Classes were taught by Native Seeds Executive Director Bill McDorman, Seed School Director, Joy Hought, and Sierra Seed Cooperative founder Rowen White. We covered topics spanning seed biodiversity as it relates to our food system, seed industry history, botany, plant taxonomy, plant reproduction, pollination, genetics, GMOs, and basic plant breeding. There were also plenty of practical hands-on exercises for plant and seed dissection, seed harvesting, processing, and storage. Even though I love seeds, prior to last week, I wondered why a farmer or gardener might want to spend the time and effort saving their own, when it is relatively inexpensive to purchase them from the experts. Now, I have an entirely new perspective. I not only learned how to save seed, but also, and perhaps more importantly, I learned why. I left the week with the knowledge, skills, and inspiration to be a better seed steward.

So, why would a person want to save seeds? I learned that the answer can be primarily divided into two categories: to promote seed diversity and to grow seeds that are regionally adapted to your unique soil and climate conditions. The first reason, for seed diversity, stems from the fact that while there are lots seed companies, there are relatively few breeders. When seed companies all rely on the same shallow pool of breeders, this creates a very narrow germplasm. Additionally, the breeders want to protect their work and be compensated for it, so they create hybrids, which are proprietary, and they patent them. F1 Hybrids are desirable in the market place because of their uniformity. Unfortunately, in the context of biodiversity, uniformity is not such a desirable thing. Breeders are often selecting for traits like high yield, size, color, and flavor, which often come at the expense nutrient density, resiliency, or how the plant will function as a whole. It's all a trade off.

Wheat presents a great example. Wheat has been bred so that it's low to the ground, with dense panicles and short, erect leaves. This makes it even, uniform, easy to harvest. But, the tradeoff is that their short height makes them more susceptible to pests and soil diseases, their dense panicles more susceptible to fungal disease, and their stunted leaves less effective at gathering light. So, they require more inputs like fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. Another example comes from the development of GMOs. Glyphosate resistant plants, also known as Roundup Ready plants, are developed using a method that disrupts their metabolic pathways and effectively gives them an immunodeficiency disease. It severely hampers their ability to uptake nutrients from the soil. These plants are bred this way because it dramatically increases yield. But, the plants are less and less nutrient dense, which means that the animals that feed on them need to eat significantly more of them, and thus more grazing land, to get the same nutrients (see chart below on reduction in nutrient density in Roundup Ready alfalfa). We were encouraged to stop thinking about yield per acre and begin thinking about nourishment per acre, instead. We are remarkably overfed and undernourished. We currently require a land area the size of Massachusetts to meet our nation's demand for high fructose corn syrup. That crop may be very high yield, but it's very low on nourishment.

Seed breeders who have good seed stewardship in mind are breeding to produce good quality, open pollinated, organically grown, regionally specific seed. They view the seed and plant as parts of a whole system, rather than as individual entities, so they don't mind a little variability in their seed stock. Variability means that if a drought or blight comes along, you are more likely to have a few plants that survive. This presents you with a unique opportunity to save the seeds from those survivors and find yourself one step closer to having a disease resistant or drought tolerant seed stock. These natural breeders aren't collecting patents, and this can be risky, but new seed business models are popping up that provide a different kind of financial incentive for the breeder. Rowen White, founder of the Sierra Seed Cooperative, describes it as tithing to her breeders. In her model, a cooperative network of growers in her region grow the seeds and they get a direct cut of the sale of those seeds based on their market value. The seeds are labeled with their breeder, which gives the breeder a vested interest in producing good quality seed, and the consumer who purchases the seed develops an important connection with the source of their seed.

The second big reason for wanting to save seed is to produce seed that is regionally adapted to your
unique climate and growing conditions. The shallow pool of seed breeders that seed companies purchase from tend to be concentrated in California, since the climate there is most desirable for growing seed crops. So, when I purchase seed from Johnny's or High Mowing Organic Seed Company, I am not necessarily buying seed that was grown in my region, even those these companies are based in my region. These seeds are not particularly well adapted to my region. They don't have relationships with my pollinators, or my soil, or my climate the way seeds would if they were grown here. This often means that they require more inputs like fertilizers in order to be successful. It also means they are less resilient to pests, diseases, and weather events than seeds that are raised here. Those maps on the back of seed packets that show which zone you can expect your seeds to grow are generalizations. Just because a seed will grow here doesn't necessarily make it regionally adapted. If we want to talk about and facilitate truly regional food systems, we must start with the development of regionally specific seeds.

We were encouraged to think of seeds the way Native Americans think of them; as pieces of a whole system, rather than entities unto themselves. Two members of the Vermont Abenaki tribe came to speak on that point. Fred Wiseman is an ethnobotanist and Melody Brooks is a historian. They paired up to form an initiative called Haven, which is reconnecting Abenakis with their cultural heritage. Recolonizing their past, they called it. They spoke of how broken their culture had become and their first step to reclaiming it was to restore their indigenous seeds. They did this not a moment too soon, as their Abenaki Rose corn was down to only 3 known ears left in the world. As they reclaimed their seed heritage, they realized that was only one piece of the puzzle and began seeking out the dances and songs done at specific times throughout the growing season that honor the sun, the rain, and the crops themselves. They found recordings of their native songs that had been captured by the Smithsonian Institute onto wax cylinders. They studied them, learned their context, the words, the dance steps, and the seasonally appropriate times to perform them. They studied the culturally specific agricultural methods used to plant the seeds. What they found was that when all these pieces came together, it led to a rediscovery of their identity. And they learned that rediscovering who you are as a people defines your responsibility to the world. They spoke of this with tears streaking their cheeks and we realized that they were embodying two central themes of the week: If we take care of the seeds, they'll take of us and the idea that perhaps our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.

Abenaki Rose Corn

I leave this week-long experience empowered to be a better seed steward. I learned how to grow, harvest, clean, store, and breed seeds. I learned that I don't need to be an expert geneticist to do so. The process was demystified, and I'm much less intimidated to give it a try. Next time I have a blight wipe out my tomatoes, I know to recognize it as an opportunity to collect seed from the few that survive, thus increasing my chances each season of having a tough, resilient crop of tomatoes. I learned that if I can finally get a decent crop of okra to grow here, and I save their seeds, I will be one season closer to having a variety uniquely adapted to my region. I also learned to be a better seed consumer. When I do buy seed, I want to be able to know the breeder and know that the seed was bred in my region. I found out about some brilliant natural breeders in my region that are doing great work, like Matthew and Petra of Fruition Seeds, and I want to support their efforts. I also met some really great people, both those leading the classes and fellow classmates who are already doing lots of really inspiring work to bring seeds and plants to life for their communities. Finally, I leave this week feeling really excited to share this important information. So, thank you for being a captive audience and stay tuned for Part II, where I'll talk about how to save your very own seeds.