permaculture

[Jason Gerhardt <jasongerhardt@gmail.com>]

SoC is still running. Scott Pittman was hoping Mars would donate the land
to PIUSA too from what he told me. I wish they would; perhaps Scott can
inform us of whether the land has been sold or not.

I admit to growing one hybrid crop: cauliflower. Cauliflower is just
amazing as a hybrid (and I LOVE cauliflower). I'm pretty sure the seed for
Cauliflower is not produced in China. It is probably the most finicky seed
crop to grow, only producing good quality seed in a couple regions of the
world, which I am forgetting now, but I want to say Northern France.

I am not involved with Family Farmers Seed Cooperative. I was running a
small bioregional seed company (Abbo-Regional Seeds, now defunct, tough
story) in Colorado in the later part of the 2000's and we were going in as
founding members until my boss pulled out due to some differences. John
Navazio (master organic plant breeder) was spear-heading the effort of FFSC
under Organic Seed Alliance. I was a student of John's, and planned a
strong career in the seed and breeding world until I got very very ill, but
that is another long, tough story. The short version, I'm happier now as a
permaculture design generalist.

-- 
Jason Gerhardt
Designer and Educator

On 12/21/2012 7:50 PM, Jason Gerhardt wrote:
> Seeds of Change was owned by Mars for a long while before they went
> downhill. Eventually the higher ups at Mars got tired of losing money
> (which they were), so they closed the research farm and fired a lot of
the
> old crew who kept up the good work. Good news is Steve Peters who ran
> research and seed buying at SoC is now managing Family Farmers Seed
Co-op.

What great news! This is the best thing that could have happened given
the closing of SSE by Mars. I was hoping they would donate the land and
seed producing facility to the Permaculture Institute which is also in
New Mexico.

> I'm not trying to trash Johnny's in entirety, as they at least still have
a
> research farm, but their major emphasis on hybrids takes a lot of control
> out of the farmers hands, and subsequently shifts production to China.
Most

>From now on I will grow no hybrids at all; only open pollinated, from
here on out, starting this winter.

> hybrid seed is produced in China as the hand labor involved in hand
> pollination, pollen gathering, and rougeing is significant and costly in
> the US. Also, the production methods for non-organic hybrids are nasty.

That is understandable.

> Lots of biocide all around to keep such in-bred plants going. It is
> essentially a life-support system of chemicals. When we buy that seed, we
> support those practices. OP is the way to go, and it is likely some of
> Johnny's OP seed is US produced, in fact I know growers who supply them.

No more hybrid crop seeds for me. Never again.

What role do you play at Family Farmer Seed Cooperative (FFSC)
http://www.organicseedcoop.com/, Jason?