As a fire swept through the offices of Abundant Life Seed Foundation when Aldrich’s Market burned in August 2003, many gardeners, farmers and seed savers around the country felt the loss of the nonprofit’s collection of rare, endangered and heirloom seeds.
In the weeks that followed the fire, a new organization, Organic Seed Alliance (OSA), arose with a new strategy in seed stewardship.
OSA decided not to rebuild the seed collection but rather to create healthy seed systems, much as animal biologists work to enhance the health of existing ecosystems rather than storing biological diversity in zoos. This strategy goes beyond conservation to increase the overall genetic diversity of agricultural crops.
The development of localized seed systems is a fundamental element in nurturing the long-term health of local food systems, said Matthew Dillon, who had been the Abundant Life Seed Foundation executive director. Local seed systems provide varieties that are suited to local needs and place ownership of seed production and distribution squarely in the hands of regional rural communities as opposed to the giant gene companies – seed-chemical-pharmaceutical behemoths that control seed in conventional agriculture.
Dillon said that OSA recognizes that seed skills – breeding, seed saving, commercial production – are in fact more endangered than the seed varieties themselves, and so the alliance developed educational workshops, field days, conferences and publications that provided farmers with these skills.
250 farmers
OSA has had a fantastic start-up period over the last four years, with more than 250 farmers in North America in attendance at OSA events, more than 1,400 seed publications distributed, and two new regional seed cooperatives launched with OSA support, Dillon reported.
OSA worked internationally as well, consulting with seed projects in Africa and Latin America. OSA also partnered with farmers to begin new breeding projects, developing varieties well suited to organic or low-input agriculture. The alliance initiated the first known organic breeding of vegetable crops, working initially in spinach, tomatoes, carrots and arugula, Dillon said.
OSA’s approach of “participatory plant breeding” has as its foundation farmer involvement in developing the breeding criteria, selecting the most desirable traits and conducting assessments in the field. Classical plant breeding for ecological complexity is a time-consuming process, requiring up to 10 years for a finished variety, but the results are crops that have the genetic diversity to withstand a wider range of environmental stress.
These new “heirlooms of tomorrow” are available in their experimental stage to financial donors and will be released to the public on completion, Dillon said.
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