Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

After visiting with native seed savers yesterday I woke up pulling 
together several disconnected thoughts on growing.

To save seeds we need to look back at how we lost so much diversity in 
the first place. Before WW II and before that we had millions of small 
farmers and backyard gardens. The loss of seeds has paralleled the 
enormous loss of growers over the last century. To save seed diversity 
we need to save the small growers and get millions more. Native groups 
ideally preserve and grow out the old varieties they once knew, and this 
is a good sign.

There are also other compelling reasons for increasing small growers 
everywhere that can also help grow the numbers of seed savers. For 
example, local food sovereignty should be recaptured, for control over 
what we eat, for our health, for community. And many need to supplement 
declining incomes and grow low-tech local jobs in this economy. Small 
growers and local food business can help there. Plus, all the evidence 
shows that small growers are more productive than Big Ag, not less, and 
can be far more efficient at conserving land, water, fossil fuels, and a 
liveable climate.

Getting from here to there is less a matter of politics and more about 
doing what we can where we are. Instead of fighting a system we grow the 
new inside the shell of the old till it becomes irrelevant. How? Showing 
how small growing can be financially sustainable on very little land is 
a necessary step to multiply the numbers of growers, for feeding 
families as well as making local markets profitable. In fact this is 
being demonstrated in many places with cutting edge methods that are 
also low tech and doable financially. Many of us do it. "Get big or get 
out" was destructive corporate propaganda.  To save the seeds, and save 
much more, we need to multiply the growers.