permaculture

[SArjuna@aol.com]

The following article by Sharon Astyk   got me to to thinking about 
starting a seed library.    I'd love to discuss   how to go about it, with 
anyone 
here who's interested.    Especially if you live in my area and would like to 
work on this together.
Shivani   in SE Wisconsin
     

What Your Neighborhood Needs is a Seed Library
by Sharon Astyk, April 15th, 2009

A while back I got an email from a guy named Ken Greene, asking if I knew 
about his enterprise - the Hudson Valley Seed Library.  I didn’t, actually, 
and I was just plain thrilled to hear that it existed.  Their farm and seed 
catalog are dedicated to preserving seeds with historical ties or specific 
adaptations to our agricultural region.  And I can’t think of a more valuable 
project.

I was lucky enough to run into Ken Greene and the Library’s founder, Doug 
(whose last name I was told and can’t remember, and can’t locate on the site 
- sorry!) at the Schenectady Greenmarket a few weeks ago, and I got to not 
only introduce myself, but also see their seed selection, including the 
flat-out stunning seed “art packs” that they sell some of their seeds in, 
showcasing a local artist’s works.  I took home a packet of Hank’s X-tra 
Special 
Baking Bean in a gorgeous package, and now I just have to wait for the soil 
to warm up enough to plant them.

I have two intentions in this post.  The first is to draw attention to 
their work, and membership to their seed library.  Their work is incredibly 
important - for most of us not lucky enough to live near a major seed 
company, 
finding really local seed sources is tough - and even if we do live near a 
seed company, often most of their varieties were grown a long distance away.  
The commitment of the HVSL to growing out seeds locally, and choosing ones 
that are particularly well adapted to our region is deeply important - it isn’
t just one resource, in some sense, seeds are the master resource of any 
regenerative future.  As Vandana Shiva writes in _Earth Democracy_,

“The seed, for example, reproduces itself and multiplies.  Farmers use seed 
both as grain adn for the next year’s crop.  Seed is free, both in the 
ecological sense of reproducing itself and in the economic sense of 
reproducing 
the farmers’ livelihood.

This seed freedom ia major obstacle for seed corporations.  To create a 
market for seed the seed has to be transformed materially so that its 
reproductive ability is blocked.  Its legal status must also be changed so 
that 
instead of being the common property of farming communities, it becomes the 
patented private property of the seed corporations.

The seed is starting to take shape as the site and symbol of freedom in the 
age of manipulation and monopoly of life.  The seed is not big and 
powerful, but can become alives as a sign of resistance and creativity in the 
smallest of huts or gardens and the poorest of families.  In smallness lies 
power.”


If you have seed orders yet to place, and live in this general region, I 
would encourage you to order through them.  If you are a small local farmer, 
perhaps you might raise out a seed crop for this wonderful project.  Even if 
you don’t garden, consider supporting them and donating their seeds to local 
community gardens.

But not only do I want to support this wonderful project, but I want to 
encourage other people to think hard about establishing local seed libraries, 
seed saving cooperatives and small seed companies.  We are at the beginning 
of a fundamental shift towards home agriculture - we see it in the garden on 
the White House Lawn and in the rising sales of local seed companies.  We 
see it in the sheer number of people who are recognizing that an access to 
food that depends on jobs in the public economy represents a vulnerability.

Having access to safe, affordable and most of all, adapted breeds of seed 
that thrive in your climate and location is a first step in gardening.  
Seeing those seeds multiply in your own garden from year to year is the first 
step in gardening as a means of saving money - when you realize that two 
lettuce seeds tucked into an old yogurt container provide you with a large 
salad 
and a thousand more seeds, you begin to see the hope of real economic growth 
- the capacity to enrich without theft from the future. 

Fundamentally, seed is not an industrial product - it is a living thing.  
It is easy to say “oh, I want to grow Black Brandywine” and order seed from 
a company that got its seed from a farm somewhere.  But the truth is that 
two strains of Black Brandywine, one grown out in a long, warm growing season 
in Missouri and another in a cool short one in Minnesota, will have 
fundamental differences.  Save it long enough, and your strain of tomato or 
bean 
will become something genetically distinct from the one you obtained, as the 
plants genes work to adapt to the conditions it finds.  We have become 
accustomed to seeing seed as something that can be standardized and produced 
like a 
factory product - but it is not - seed is local, seed is specific to its 
place and time and circumstances.  And thus, there is no way to get the best 
possible results from an industrialized agriculture that treats all places as 
though they were the same and all seeds as though they were destined to the 
same future.

I think there is no doubt that saved seed, whether bought or traded, will 
be a large part of any hopeful future.  So I would encourage those with the 
power to do so to invest their time and energy in supporting institutions 
like this one, and national and local seed saving groups.  And I would 
encourage you all to learn to save at least one or two varieties of seed, to 
trade 
and share them, and perhaps to establish local seed libraries that can hold 
the seed, the site of so much possibility, resistance and bright hope, in its 
right place of honor at the center of our communities.

Sharon













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