Chaos Magnet

Seeds trust

If I ever get out to the farm, one of the things I want to do is start growing vegetables. My friend Molly just sent me a link to Seeds Trust, a company that preserves and sells heirloom seeds. (These are the seeds that actually germinate from year to year, rather than the sterile hybrid varieties most farmers use.)

From their catalog:

If we are going to sustain a genetically diverse agriculture, we need to redevelop a network of gardeners and farmers, each producing, saving and trading seeds adapted to their own unique conditions. Agriculture was developed and sustained in this manner for 10,000 years.

If we are going to redevelop a network of gardeners and farmers that produce, save and trade seeds, we need a new kind of seed company. We need companies that don't just sell gardeners and farmers all their seeds each year. Instead, the seed company of the future will search the world's remaining agricultural resources constantly to find new supplies of important, adapted, open-pollinated varieties. It will then teach its customers to save their own seeds from individual plants doing best in their own gardens and farms.

Seeds Trust was started for this reason. It is nothing more than a conservative, long-term plan to help support and increase the priceless diversity now being squandered.

Technorati tags: seeds | sustainable agriculture | heirloom seeds |

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