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Sowing the Seeds of a More Resilient Agriculture

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With heirloom varieties disappearing, we need the cooperation of small seed producers, distributers, chefs and gardeners to maintain and uplift special heritage seed varieties.

In the depths of winter, there’s a particular joy in flipping through a seed catalogue, dreaming of next year’s garden and sunny days outside. I think about how those tiny capsules of life hold miraculous potential for the extraordinary. The heirlooms of the past and the undiscovered varieties of the future. The plants we’ve coevolved with for the last 10,000 years are the same genetic lineages that will feed us through the most troublesome days of climate change and socioeconomic upheaval.

I’m not alone in this sentiment. As SeedShed founder Ken Greene said at a recent conference, “The history of humanity is a history of seed saving.” The occasion was the eighth annual Student Organic Seed Symposium. A group of students and professionals dedicated to organic seed gathered in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, to share, as the conference theme put it, “seed stories: narratives of self, science, spirit and social context.” It was an inspiring experience for me, a young farmer beginning to dive into seed production and plant breeding.

Attendees had a wide array of roles in the seed system, from plant breeding at universities to revitalizing indigenous food systems to running small seed companies. All shared a commitment to creating a decentralized, diverse and resilient seed system that could be responsive to a changing climate and evolving consumer preferences. It’s not an easy path when 85 percent of research and development funding goes toward corn and soybeans, and when three companies control over half the global seed market.

Yet while people are familiar with the trend of consolidation with large farms and huge chemical/seed corporations, there is also an opposing trend: growing numbers of small, regionally focused seed companies.

Arguably, it’s just in time. With heirloom varieties disappearing, we desperately need initiatives like Slow Food’s Ark of Taste to raise awareness, and we need small seed producers, distributors, chefs and gardeners dedicated to maintaining and uplifting those special varieties that are legacies of our heritage.

It’s also a matter of preserving the genetic diversity that allows us to breed the new varieties necessary for resilient production in the face of a changing climate—a pressing issue here and now. This monumental task requires farmers, chefs and everyday consumers to make choices that preserve heirlooms and respond to global change with new, better varieties adapted to emerging pest and disease pressures.

Most gardeners and farmers have probably had a variety (or entire crop) fail because of weather, pests or poorly adapted seed. That’s why it’s not all dreams of summertime when picking out your seeds. For farmers in particular, it’s one of the most critical annual decisions. Without knowing what to choose and where to buy, it’s something of a guessing game—find a picture or variety name you like, read the description and take the seed company at its word.

As a result, seed decisions are based primarily on personal experience; it takes time to figure out what works in your garden or farm. When picking a new variety, some may have a secondhand recommendation, but often it’s necessary to flip through the catalogues again.

If a grower is really lucky (like we are in Wisconsin), decisions can be informed by results from a regional variety trial, such as those run by the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Seed to Kitchen Collaborative (SKC). The program has evaluated scores of varieties across more than a dozen crops in the past five years, representing many plant breeders and seed companies large and small, from near and far.

But even with that data, it’s still a difficult decision. For instance, there are over 5,500 tomato varieties available online today. It’s a dizzying task to dig through the options and compare sources for the same variety. One farmer I talked to spoke of what he called “catalogue fatigue”—the rabbit hole of trying to find a new variety to grow.

This convoluted process is necessary because, oddly, vegetable seed is essentially sold via the same model as the 1800s: seed catalogues specific to individual companies, whether paper or online. How many other industries still operate on such an opaque model? For nearly every other consumer good, we can go to an online storefront, compare items from many suppliers, and look at consumer reviews to back up or refute the product claims. If you want a new backpack, you can visit myriad online stores and look at user reviews and multiple brands all in one place. This freedom of choice and transparency allows the consumer to make an informed decision.

SeedLinked, an exciting new project from Wisconsin, fills that need for a review platform and search engine for adapted vegetable seed. The crowdsourcing model enables decentralized breeding and trialing, thus bringing regional adaptation and transparency into the seed system. Hopefully it will give small, regional seed companies more visibility, incentivize regional focus and the maintenance of heirloom varieties, and help growers make informed decisions.

Some of the best heirlooms were discoveries in backyard gardens or the products of an on-farm breeding project. The beauty of variety trialing platforms like Seed to Kitchen and SeedLinked is that they place power back in the hands of the gardeners and farmers. Organizations like these seek to help growers participate in regional trials more easily, validating new varieties and rediscovering old ones.

Take, for instance, the Wisconsin Lakes Pepper. At the 2018 Organic Seed Grower’s conference, I met Erica Kempter and Mike Levine of Nature and Nurture Seeds, a small farm-based seed company out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, focused on varieties adapted to the Upper Midwest. Erica and Mike are veterans in the industry, and their affable Midwest attitude made me feel at home in the organic seed community.

At the time, I was managing the Wisconsin farm site for a national seed variety trialing program focused on northern environments. Erica suggested I try one of their favorites in our pepper trial: a red bell by the name of Wisconsin Lakes. “You’re going to love it,” she said. As I dug deeper into the pepper’s history, I learned it had actually been bred at UW–Madison in the 1950s, “before our public universities switched exclusively to hybrid pepper breeding,” as Erica pointed out.

To my surprise (being used to trialing hybrids and new releases), the pepper performed well. Better, in some respects, than the commercial standard in the trial, Red Ace F1. Wisconsin Lakes met all our goals: early ripeness, thick walls, great flavor and good yields in the face of disease pressure. Fast-forward and the pepper has been in the Seed to Kitchen variety trials for two years now.

This year, I was contracted by Nature and Nurture Seeds to grow and process the variety for seed that will now make its way to numerous farms and gardens in the Great Lakes and beyond. As a side benefit of taking out the seed, roasted and chopped Wisconsin Lakes Peppers now fill my freezer to brighten midwinter days. They were seeds bred in Wisconsin, grown in Wisconsin and sold by a regional company, keeping it local and adapted. It’s no wonder this delicious pepper does well on my farm.

It’s up to us, together—the growers and the eaters—to ensure that the seed system of the future meets our needs and supports regional economies. With searchable, comparative, review-based tools like SeedLinked, we hold the keys to maintaining beloved heirlooms and discovering new varieties that fit and evolve with our changing climate. It’s a process of collaboratively building a living terroir. Our history, especially in the face of an uncertain food and farming future, will always be one of seed stewards enabling a future with good food for all. It’s the whole story—not just farm to table, but also seed to plate.

Visit SeedLinked and be a part of assessing local adaptation in your garden. See trial results from past years and sign up to participate next year at Seed to Kitchen Collaborative.

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