Saving seeds has been integral to human history. However, most farmers today simply don’t save seeds but instead purchase them every season from commercial suppliers. In 1862, the majority of Americans were farmers presumably relying on saving and using seeds from previous harvests; according to a PBS article, in 2019, that percentage was down to 2%. This decline, combined with the industrialization of agriculture, which favors efficiency and consolidation, has led to increasingly homogenized crops. These trends have cost us a wealth of genetic diversity at a time when climate change makes genetic plant research and understanding a necessity. Just how much has it cost us? Since the 1900s, approximately 90% of our produce varieties in the U.S. alone, according to Time magazine. Approximately 1,700 seed banks, also known as gene banks, around the world house invaluable collections of plant species today. Unlike the mostly sealed Svalbard Vault, which only receives deposits twice a year as its focus lies on the backup and maximum security for seeds, many gene banks are dynamic operations vital for scientific research, education, and species preservation. They actively conduct research while storing seeds, keeping their genetics and cultural heritage alive. Saving seeds preserves culture; sowing seeds perpetuates it. “Seeds are a living germ plasm and although you can, under the best conditions, store them for a very long time, eventually they’ll die,” Mike Bollinger, director of the U.S. nonprofit Seed Savers Exchange, tells The Rooted Journal. “Part of what you need to do is regenerate that germ plasm to keep it living. The participatory work in our exchange is crucial.” Since it was founded in Missouri in 1975, Seed Savers Exchange has championed the heritage and stories behind heirloom seeds, providing educational resources and building
a network of gardeners who save and share seeds amongst one another. These gardeners contribute their heirloom varieties to the Seed Savers Exchange collection, the largest nongovernmental seed bank in America. “Participatory conservation is community work,” says Bollinger. “We have over 20,000 varieties in our seed bank and doing that conservation work alone would be insurmountable. It’s safest in multiple hands.” The organization backs up many of its seeds at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and invests in initiatives that gather information about seed performance and provide educational resources to the public. In one example, through a partnership with The Edible Schoolyard Project, a Berkeley-based nonprofit that brings organic gardens to public schools, Seed Savers Exchange engages students in growing and saving seeds from food plants that they then pass onto next year’s classes. The nonprofit is also repatriating seeds to Indigenous communities, returning heritage varieties to their original custodians. And it involves home gardeners in trialing seed bank varieties in their own yards; they then share feedback on how those seeds perform in terms of flavor, yield, appearance, and even disease resistance. Through this vast network of home gardeners, Seed Savers Exchange gains on-the-ground insights into seed performance in different regions and in some cases real-time data on the effects of climate change and other environmental pressures on food plants. These community-generated learnings help inform the seeds distributed through Seed Saver Exchange’s catalog, an annual print mailer that weaves stories and recipes with quirky descriptions of unique fruits, vegetables, and legumes. According to Bollinger, the direct sale of seeds generates 60-70% of SSE’s revenue with the remainder coming from other means such as members, donations, and grants. Aside from administrative and fundraising costs, the organization’s proceeds go toward its seed-saving and exchange efforts, community education and programming, and the maintenance of its farm in Iowa. The success of Seed Savers Exchange’s advocacy over nearly 50 years has led to growing awareness, and competition, from other heirloom and open-pollinated seed companies. “The organization is successful in its mission when we see more of these seed varieties,” says Bollinger. “Whether it’s growing interest in seeds that are uniquely adapted to certain regions or the meaning and cultural significance they bring to certain ethnic groups, it’s all a wonderful thing. It also means fewer people will come to us for specific seeds. That’s one of the organization’s biggest challenges moving forward.”
On an even more grassroots level, seed libraries are gaining in popularity both in the U.S. and globally, with many providing seeds to their local communities, often for free. An early adopter, Rebecca Newburn founded the Richmond Grows Seed Lending Library in May 2010, located inside the Richmond Public Library in California’s Bay Area. Like others of its kind, the seed library’s aim is to make locally grown seeds available to gardeners. “I wanted to create a replicable model that anyone could take, tweak, and use to make their own seed library, or to just be able to provide seeds to their community,” Newburn tells The Rooted Journal. Since opening the library, Newburn has seen growing public interest in climate resilience and seed sovereignty in her area, driven largely by the strength of the library’s community of home gardeners and the compelling seed stories they share with one another. “It’s so active and engaging,” she says. The Richmond Grows library website offers extensive information for beginners and more advanced gardeners alike: on how to use the seed library, save seeds, start new gardens, and the tools Newburn’s developed and made public for helping others open new seed libraries. Her latest project is collecting census data to inform the Seed Library Network, a comprehensive database of the world’s seed libraries. The database aims to help people locate seed libraries in their own neighborhood or region, with the hopes of being able to foster and encourage more participation in the movement worldwide. Efforts are underway in some other places as
well. In Kenya, for example, farmers are turning to community seed banks to store and test indigenous seeds, doing what they can to navigate the country’s laws, which limit the sale of seeds. And in 2021, Maine voters passed the nation’s first “right to food” amendment to the state’s constitution. The amendment states the inherent rights that individuals have to “grow, raise, harvest, produce, and consume the food of their own choosing.” While these small movements are certainly positive, their cumulative impact remains uncertain. As Fowler wrote in “Seeds on Ice,” “Anyone who claims to see into the future and discern what should or should not exist, what will or will not be useful in future climates to future generations, is a fool.” The book illustrates the stark reality and challenges we’re facing, yet the very existence of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault offers hope for the future. Take the vault’s geographical and political reach, for example. Seeds from the U.S. sit near those from Russian gene banks. South Korean seeds are stored next to seeds in magenta-stained wooden boxes from North Korea. The vault houses seed samples from nearly every country on Earth and continues to receive deposits every year. No matter where we live, one thing that we have in common is that we all need to eat — and for that, we need seeds. In turn, these tiny entities of immense significance rely on our cooperation to thrive. What else can be held in the palm of one’s hand, encapsulating the potential and miracle of life while so clearly symbolizing our world’s interconnectedness and mutual dependence?
“The organization is successful in its mission when we see more of these seed varieties,” says Bollinger. “Whether it’s growing interest in seeds that are uniquely the meaning and cultural significance they bring to certain ethnic groups, it’s all a wonderful thing.” adapted to certain regions or
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ISSUE 01
SEEDS OF RESILIENCE
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