Food justice and food security starts with a home-cooked meal. Everyday meals with family makes a local food economy much stronger.
We do not own the seeds we sell; we are simply caretakers of the seedstock, maintaining genetic purity, quality and viability while they are in our care.
Food is at the forefront of many people’s minds today, with daily news channels reporting on foods to avoid for health reasons, food safety recalls almost daily, foods that a new study has shown will fight this or that disease, the growth of farmer’s markets and endless debates on local, sustainable food. Some articles and organizations trumpet the dire need to “feed the world”, while others are talking about feeding ourselves. There is ample evidence that food waste is a serious problem and that distribution systems are the culprit. Food has become noticeably more expensive over the past couple of years, with higher prices expected due to this year’s hard drought across much of the Midwestern US.
What’s a person to do today about sourcing and eating real, good and healthy food? One excellent example is that of Hnin W. Hnin, or more specifically, her mom. That’s right, her mom – a local, sustainable, cultural food hero to her family and an example of what is possible for everyone. Hnin’s family immigrated to New York over 25 years ago, but her mom has faithfully kept their cultural food traditions alive by cooking daily. She shops at the local farmer’s markets when she can, and the supermarket or discount stores when she can’t. She doesn’t cook every day to be hip, trendy or because some article in some magazine said it was the thing to do. She does it because that’s how she has been able to keep her family fed all these years on a shoestring budget. They have cooked their traditional, cultural foods that have helped them keep their identities intact in a world that wants to assimilate and homogenize everyone and everything. We could learn some serious lessons from them. Americans have the blessings and simultaneous curse of having a melting pot culture. Many of us have no strong cultural identity to ground us today, and so are swayed by corporate advertising that promises us a better life or to make us feel better about ourselves if we eat this or drink that. We are lead to believe that healthy food is more expensive, when the exact opposite is more often the case.
Eating real, good and healthy food everyday is not just the realm of the wealthy or famous, as is sometimes thought when we see the prices of organic produce in a Whole Foods market. It is possible to eat well and not spend a fortune doing so. That is where food justice and local and sustainable agriculture comes in. Everyone is more engaged with a local agricultural community, from the producers to the consumers. There is much more transparency, so everyone has a higher stake in the process, with resulting higher overall quality. The Slow Food organization mission statement is for food that is “good, clean and fair”. There are no modifiers in that statement, so it applies to everyone, everywhere. By bringing together a focus on good food – healthy, tasty, chemical free with clean food such as organic, local and sustainable along with fair food that brings sovereignty, food access and fair wage and labor into the mix there is a community of diversity that has not been seen yet on the world stage that is food. There is some real potential here, a nationwide community that is as diverse as it is engaged, committed and passionate about “good, clean and fair” food for everyone. It is surprising to some to see the growth in decentralized, independent food communities and pathways that have appeared across the nation. It is of no surprise to others who have worked to make it happen, a little at a time.
Sustainable food is how we will eventually feed ourselves on this planet, either by choice or by force. The current system is patently unsustainable and will continue to create more damages than benefits as it grows and continues, until it collapses. By definition, we will arrive at a sustainable food system or we won’t arrive at all. Exactly how this sustainable system functions is very much a work and dialogue in progress, with everyone having a say in it. Good, clean and fair are excellent starting points to found this new paradigm, and continue the work of building a network of diverse local food communities that nourish all of us.
We do not own the seeds we sell; we are simply caretakers of the seedstock, maintaining genetic purity, quality and viability while they are in our care. These seeds – all of them – belong to humanity. They are what have kept us alive for the past 12,000 to 15,000 years once the human race transitioned from hunter-gatherers into a more agricultural society, growing and saving the seeds from year to year, putting aside the very best seeds for planting the next year.
It is impossible to our way of thinking for anyone to “own” or “patent” seeds, as they are the very lifeblood of our race.
This is our full-time job as well as our consuming passion, not just a passing fancy or whimsical interest. This, our life’s calling, demands every bit of education, experience, creativity, energy and enthusiasm that we have. Everyday. We see, looking back, that every single thing that we’ve done in our life has led us up to this point and has been a preparation for this work that has selected us.
We have come to realize that the more knowledge and experience that we gain, the more that have yet to gain. Our road ahead is full of learning and we welcome that. We are eternally grateful for the mentors that have most graciously taken us under their wing, educating us and showing us the best possible ways to move forward with moral and ethical integrity, as well as seed purity, vitality and quality. Thank you ever so much! We are in your debt.
There are those who want to put seed companies out of business, advocating for everyone to save their own seeds and maintain their own seed banks and seedstocks. This is a noble proposition, but we don’t believe it to be feasible. We have almost 20 years of growing and soil building knowledge and experience behind us, yet we feel in so many ways that we are just beginning our journey into deeper knowledge. This is our commitment, to bringing out the best varieties and maintaining the highest quality of seeds and it takes all of our time and then some. We don’t see everyone as being interested or able to make this commitment over the long term. This is one of the main reasons why viable, family owned and run seed companies are so critically important today. It is human scale agriculture in the purest form, at the very beginning of the cycle of food.
We see diversified, decentralized and local human scale agriculture as being the answer to how we are going to feed ourselves in the long term. It starts with the absolute best seeds possible, which is in turn made possible by individual seed companies that have a commitment and passion to constant, careful observation and maintenance of the highest quality seeds, correcting genetic drift, anomalies and other problems as they arise in partnerships with highly dedicated and experienced seed growers who are experts in their fields.
This doesn’t and can’t happen overnight or in a short time frame; it takes years and years. We are often looking 3 – 5 years into the future in order to introduce a new variety of seed from the time it arrives in our hands. We do the initial evaluation grow-out, and if we like it one of our growers will do another grow-out for observation of any variability, drift or evidence of possible cross breeding. The subsequent grow-outs ensure that each new generation is growing true to the previous one and the established standard for that variety. Each grow-out requires a full season. If there are problems, they are evaluated to see what is required to correct them, and if it is worth the time or if it would be better to start with another variety that looks more promising. After the evaluations the production grow-out begins taking place. This in itself may take 2 or more years, depending on how much seed we have to start with. Some seed production takes 3 or more years just to reach a genetically viable starting population. From there the seed production growing takes place, and we can offer that seed variety for sale.
This level of dedication is labor and resource intensive, one of the reasons that diverse family seed companies are needed to provide the quality of seed we need to grow our food. Individual gardeners can participate in saving and preserving seeds and diversity as well, learning to save a smaller number of particularly tasty varieties on a smaller scale. We strongly encourage everyone to try saving at least a small portion of their seeds. It is a wonderful education into the miracle that is seed, along with the irrepressible adaptability of the seed. The humble strength of life is clearly shown each spring when moist warm soil breaks the dormancy of a seed, giving it another chance to express its full genetic encoding and potential. As with gardening, saving seeds will make you a better observer, a better gardener and a better steward of your part of the earth.
We feel that it is through a collaborative effort between small family run seed companies, seed saving exchanges and dedicated individual gardeners that the strength of the seed future is the strongest. Independent, decentralized yet cooperative seed production and distribution is the most robust and resilient model that offers the best protection against the loss of seed varieties to a patent or consolidation effort.
Food Justice and Security Starts at Home
Food justice and food security starts with a home-cooked meal. Everyday meals with family makes a local food economy much stronger.
Caretakers of the Seeds
We do not own the seeds we sell; we are simply caretakers of the seedstock, maintaining genetic purity, quality and viability while they are in our care.