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livingontheland - [Livingontheland] To save the seeds we need to save the growers

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] To save the seeds we need to save the growers
  • Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 08:27:47 -0700

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.




  • [Livingontheland] To save the seeds we need to save the growers, tradingpost, 11/17/2013

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