Original Feature: Seed Saving

This is my first long-food piece, written in the Spring of 2012. It explores genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the influence of agricultural biotechnology companies on our food system, and seed saving through the words of farmers in Massachusett's Pioneer Valley.

Seed saving is a lost art…or is it?

By Dara Kagan

Suzanne Webber surveyed her dancing greens. We stood at the edge of her small vegetable plot, no larger than a patch of dry ground that had been covered by a car during a rainstorm.  Beyond stood the rest of her Montague, Massachusetts farm, Brooks Bend; sheep dotting the parched New England grass across the road from the 1751 farmhouse, shepherded by two talkative dogs, Gemma and Ray. Webber loves the diversity of color and pattern in the sheep she breeds. The farmhouse was red, with a bright blue door.

Her concern on this chilly Tuesday in February lay at her feet in the cool, porous loam: her dancing greens. She is one of several farmers who are growing three kinds of greens together in order to increase the seed gene pool and enhance a desired trait. “You choose the ones you like,” she said, pointing out differences in color, texture, stem, shininess, and leaf shape between the ten new greens. “By taste, by vigor, by beauty, by how well it does in the cold.” She will selectively breed her favorites, that is, save their seeds and create new gene pools by growing them out.

I ordered a salad at lunch at the nearby Book Mill. Its arrival stole my attention from reviewing my notes of Brooks Bend, the varied greens variegated with purple and glistening with oil like fish scales. Everything on my plate was thanks to the efforts of selective breeding—in a manner of speaking. The seeds that grew this lunch may have come from Webber’s farm; as the sheepdogs nuzzled her hand, she had removed from the shelf a lidless white cardboard box with neatly labeled paper packets of tiny seeds, seeds that she has saved from her own garden or received at exchanges. But they just as easily could have been grown from patented, genetically modified seed sold by a multinational corporation.  Which salad lay on my plate? More importantly, why does it matter?

✿

All the solutions to world hunger, nutrition, and obesity are rooted, literally, in the seed.  Agriculture is not only an international multi-billion dollar business. It is what we put in our bodies to survive and enjoy, an issue that matters to everyone, because everyone has to eat. What is the seed? The seed is our past, present, and future as a civilization. Every group has a different method and philosophy behind growing the types of food we eat, be they heritage organic or large-yield and pest-resistant, and how we can ensure that developing countries today and the world in the future have access to a healthy and sustainable food source. As such, the seed is fraught with politics and controversy. We are currently in the midst of an ideological turf war around the seed, and consequently, our food and food systems. Agricultural giant Monsanto wants to patent it to feed the world, small heritage and organic farmers want to save it year after year and eliminate dependence on corporations, and seed banks want to protect it. Their goal is the same: to provide food to feed people. How they hope to accomplish that goal, and the scope of it, is completely different.

   

✿

Gaby Immerman, horticulturalist at the Smith College Botanic Garden, gave me homework that would supposedly blow my mind. To see “a baby, in a box, with its lunch,” soak red kidney beans. I didn’t know I ate all that every time I had chili! I soaked the beans for day in a clear ribbed plastic up, checking their progress every few hours and cautioning my roommate not to knock it over, or worse, drink the water. At 6:00 p.m. the next evening, I began peeling the “box” (red seed coat), which left me staring at the “lunch,” or endosperm, which looked pale under the yellow light of my desk lamp. The endosperm, the meat of the seed, provides nutrients to the embryo before it has leaves to do its own photosynthesis. When we eat seeds, i.e. rice, corn, beans, or quinoa, or even chili, we receive the same nutrient-rich “lunch.” I carefully peeled off half of the endosperm; sandwiched between the two hemispheres was the baby (embryo). If you looked closely, you could see the primordial root and the plumial; a root, i.e. tiny stem, and a shoot, two itsy bitsy leaves, both pale and sallow. My mind was officially blown.

Kidney beans are angiosperms: angio, vessel, and sperm, seed. The vessel is a fruit; there are the usual suspects (apples and cucumbers) and the unusual ones (acorns and walnuts). Only two groups of plants, angiosperms and gymnosperms (conifers), actually make seeds, which is “A relatively recent innovation, and a really brilliant one, which has allowed the flowering plants [angiosperms] to dominate earth.”  Even before farmers took up husbandry and began breeding traits they desired, plants used this technique to breed traits that would allow them to survive. Apples, for example, evolved to be sweet and juicy so animals would want to eat them and excrete their seed, allowing the plant more chances of survival. Dandelions have evolved to be spread by the wind.

Farmers actually genetically modify plants all the time, to bring out specific desirable traits. Webber’s dancing greens are a perfect example. New genes come from new parents, through crossing, pollinating, or hybridizing. When a farmer reaches a desired product and wishes to replicate it exactly, he or she uses cuttings or grafting.  Seed companies Unlike seed companies, though, farmers do not introduce new genes that couldn’t happen naturally, such as through the process of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is the new sequencing and insertion of genes into an organism to enhance, repress, or introduce a desired trait. Farmers do this on the plant level, as opposed to the genetic level. The term genetically modified organism (GMO) refers to genetic engineering as well as transgenic modification; the insertion of genes from a different species of plant, or from a totally unrelated bacterium.  GMOs are supposed to increase plants’ resistance to disease and pests, though some argue that they have in fact made the gene pool more susceptible to these crop killers. Bt-corn is an example of a transgenic GMO; scientists insert a gene from a soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, which is poisonous to the European corn borer when ingested. There are also fish modified with cattle growth genes and tomatoes modified with flounder genes.

Hybrids occur regularly in nature, resulting in a next generation that is not standardized, with three options; it can turn out like either of the parents or the hybrid strain. Plants that are insect or wind pollinated take more work to protect to “come true,” or be the same desired variety every time, if they are open-pollinated.

So what is the real difference between Webber’s seeds and GMOs? Yes, Webber chooses traits to continue through collecting seeds, while GMOs have traits inserted into the seed itself, but it really comes down to ownership. GMOs are patented, giving seed companies the ownership of the gene sequence of the plant. Farmers who plant GMO crops are contractually obligated to continually buy new seeds, making them dependent on a successful crop each year for the funds to purchase new seeds. This is happening not just in the United States but also globally, especially in countries with booming populations such as India. This invention is changing the entire agricultural landscape, quite literally. Plants that propagate themselves through the wind (corn) or insect pollination (squash) can easily spread their engineered genes into native populations and neighboring non-GMO fields, a process known as genetic drift. A farmer’s deviance from the strict patent regulations to not save GMO seed spells a lawsuit, as does the accidental contamination of their field by a GMO seed. At the end of the day, the distinction between Webber’s seeds and GMOs is clear; it is illegal to save GMOs, leading to possible lawsuits or massive fines that can quite easily end the existence of a farm.

✿

Suzanne Webber took a road trip in the early 1990s, a trip that would in part inspire her to leave New York City to start Brooks Bend. Her drive took her from the Southwestern United States into Mexico. Upon entering the country, Webber saw a sign advertising the Mexico Seed Bank, and took a picture. When she returned to New York, she wrote them a letter “asking more about their work,” because saving seeds was exactly what she wanted to do when she had her own farm. While the seed bank never got back to her, the Pioneer Valley Seed Savers did.  

The Pioneer Valley Seed Savers (PVSS) was a skill-sharing organization of farmers created by David Fisher and his housemates in 1998. The young idealists, including Webber, learned out of books, holding yearly workshops and seed exchanges despite a lack of practical experience. While they each worked on their own farms and their own projects, members would meet to learn about seed saving and sharing. After a few years, the group had raised enough money to buy seed saving equipment. What, I wondered, did seed saving equipment look like?

For answers, I went to Kate Pawling. Pawling is the Operations Manager and Plant Propagator for the New England Wildflower Society (NEWFS), located at Nasami Farm Plant Nursery in Whately, Massachusetts. On the drive over, I passed idyllic farm after idyllic farm. NEWFS, as the name implies, conserves wild plants. They collect wild samples and selectively breed them, selling the results to regional landscape artists to promote genetic diversity and sustainable landscaping. Pawling showed me around their newly build facility. Leaning against the wall was seed saving equipment, to dry, separate from chaff, and clean seeds. I had expected something more mechanical. Instead, what lay before me was a six foot tall Plexiglas box, with an upside down “U” inside. As Pawling explained it, the seeds were placed below one of the entrances and blown into the top of the box by a reversed vacuum. The heavier chaff would sink into a specific container below, as would the seeds. As NEWFS saves seeds to promote regional diversity of non-crop plants, once the seeds are cleaned, they go through a simple packaging and storage phase. Crop seeds take a slightly different turn; once the seeds had been cleaned, they could be packaged and stored—to eventually be grown, modified to individual preferences or for regional hardiness, and shared.

Former member Eli (pronounced “Ellie”) Rogosa, organic farmer and artisan baker, fondly described the Seed Savers’ seed exchange. At exchanges, members would disseminate seed from their farms and get together to create community seeds that could be owned by anyone. Those who received seeds would take them home and plant them, and then selectively breed the ones they liked, just like Webber. Seed swaps support diversity, because growers have selected based on their personal preferences, which helps create more sound, complex gene pools to better adapt to unprecedented weather extremes. “Exchanges” are not always trades; a grower only has to bring whatever they are willing to share, regardless of compensation. The group inspired a generation of farmers who are passionate about local, sustainable, and organic food, as well as seed saving. Over the course of their existence, PVSS raised enough money to buy their own seed saving equipment. While the equipment has been lost since their 2006 disbandment, the work of each member continues to challenge non-saving practices by large seed conglomerates, and contribute to genetic diversity.

✿

A diverse array of genes predisposes a plant variety for longevity, as it increases the chances that the plant can survive in and adapt to multiple environments. Channeling PVSS, Webber wishes to reconnect seed saving with sustainability; “we need to have sovereignty, and be able to independently feed ourselves.” She stresses not only sustainable farming practices, but also sustained genetic diversity of non-GMO plants. GMOs can infect the native or non-GMO population of a crop through genetic drift; once a plant is infected, it forms a hybrid strain that is difficult to control. For Nancy Hanson to protect her squash from forming a hybrid strain, she must cover the flower with a plastic bag to protect it from insect pollination and do the work of the insect herself.

Hanson, the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program Manager at Hampshire College, met me in a glassed-in walkway known as “The Bridge” between the library and the gym. She pointed through the glass towards the large steel and glass greenhouses, barely visible behind a thick but barren copse. Food for the CSA is grown both in the greenhouses and in covered outdoor plots similar to Webber’s that grow greens through the winter. She mostly buys the (non GMO) seeds for crops each year, as they are standardized hybrids that are hard to keep the same season after season, but one crop gets the special treatment of seed saving; Mr. Warner’s Red. Mr. Warner, a Pioneer Valley resident, grew white popcorn to bring to church gatherings. In 1986, he found a red ear in his fields. So “He saved the ear, and planted that seed for years until he got a nearly 100% red variety.” Hanson noted, “It has a much better flavor than Orville Redenbacher.”

I asked Hanson if she worried about local GMO corn infecting Mr. Warner’s Red through genetic drift. I immediately had seen the danger of having two varieties of corn, which pollinates by wind, so dangerously close to each other on the open fields of the valley; one brief gust, and Mr. Warner’s Red could lose its famed heritage status. She said she hadn’t thought of GMOs infecting her fields, but agreed it was possible.  Hanson nodded, “Once you take it [GMOs] out of the laboratory, you can’t shut the door.” Immerman, of the “baby in a box with its lunch,” called GMOs “letting the genie out of the bottle.” I heard various issues with GMOs while writing this piece; GMO pollen invading native weeds, making them herbicide-resistant, or GMOs negatively affecting pollinators such as butterflies and honeybees. But aside from these fears of GMOs infiltrating native populations, most people couldn’t articulate exactly what got to them about genetically modified seeds. Then, suddenly, it made sense why the smaller farmers I spoke to just didn’t seem to be on the same page as major seed companies; they weren’t even reading the same book. The smaller farmers were all about feeding themselves and their communities; their vision of an ideal food system was smaller and based on a ten thousand year old tradition. Modern seed companies, on the other hand, are only about 200 years old, and the scope of their work goes far beyond the philosophies of individual farmers. They breed seeds for “broad uniformity,” creating seeds that are not well-adapted for a specific place, but meant to be sent around the world.

To Fedco Seeds, breeding for “broad uniformity” goes against their mission and very nature. C.R. Lawn, Rogosa’s partner and fellow Seed Saver, started Fedco in Waterville, Maine in 1978. While Fedco Seeds sells to farmers in all 50 states, their inventory is specific to the Northeastern climate, specializing in cold-hardy varieties. Fedco is one of the few U.S. seed companies organized as a cooperative, with consumers and workers as part-owners. “The cooperative ethic recognizes that we are all in this together,” reads their website. “What is good for our managers should be good for our workers and good for our customers and vice versa.” Fedco actually tests their seeds to make sure there is no trace of GMOs in their crops. None of Fedco’s seeds are patented varieties, meaning no one owns the genetic code and resultant traits. Both Rogosa and Lawn do extensive educational outreach on seed saving and sustainable farming practices, and are pioneers in restoring heritage, organic, and diverse seeds. Fedco offers many varieties, organic and heritage strains that are no longer offered by one of the six large seed conglomerates that remain in the United States, after years of consolidating and driving smaller companies out of business; Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Bayer, Dow, and BASF. It is expensive work to restore seeds, and in fact to make any advance in agriculture due to the time and labor involved in researching and developing seeds, regardless of their status as genetically modified.

According to Hanson, in the early 1900s, “Public funds were used for public research for the public good.” She cited the land grant colleges that were founded with government money to teach agriculture to a new generation of farmers, and to spark innovative growing techniques that would feed the country. But with less and less money available for research in general, and a newly global food system, corporations have begun to fill the role of government. One such corporation is Monsanto.

✿

“Companies like Dow, DuPont, and Monsanto have invested huge amounts. Yes, they’re trying to make money, but they’re also trying to feed the world, and find seeds that will grow in hard climates.” These are the words of Dr. Virginia Weldon, the Vice President of Public Policy for Monsanto from 1988 to 1998.  Depending on one’s point of view, Weldon worked either for the widely despised corporation that sues farmers and destroys traditional agriculture, or the corporate darling on whose shoulders rests the fate of human civilization. Weldon quoted the following fact several times in our conversation: “The world’s population will swell to 9 billion in the next 50 years, during which the human race will consume twice as much food as it has since the beginning of agriculture.” Monsanto’s goal, she argues, is not to terrorize small farmers, but to sell genetically engineered seeds around the globe that are prepared to handle the demands of the future, from climate change to insects to population growth. Unsurprisingly, there has been quite a backlash.

The U.S. is one of the only developed countries that do not mandate labeling genetically engineered foods, though a recent ABC poll indicated that 93% of Americans support labeling. Other countries, in Europe especially, exemplify the regulatory shift of the past few decades. Whereas regulators used to draw conclusions from an evidence base, argues Weldon, they now emphasize a cautionary approach to GMOs. Unlike much of the world, the U.S. has been food-secure for quite some time, experiencing few famines, little rationing, and good growing conditions. Hanson speculates that this disparity is why Europe is more sensitive to GMOs; in Europe, “there is famine in living memory.” By contrast, India and China, which are currently experiencing famines and exploding populations, need the increased yields from GMOs. Not every country, however, is the same; “The last thing American farmers need is increased yields, because it drives the price down and they get screwed.” While the cheaper cost could be good for those feeding cattle or making ethanol, it’s bad for the average farmer selling their crop. And because there is so little payout because of the cost of the seeds themselves, farmers have to invest totally in the one crop, creating monoculture (to the detriment of biodiversity) and necessitating dependence on the crop’s survival. What is often forgotten in this debate, though, is that simply no one else has the capacity to achieve Monsanto’s goal of feeding the world.

Part of Monsanto’s more unsavory reputation comes not from the GMO seeds themselves, but from the patents surrounding their genetic enhancements. The company has sued farmers for two types of patent violations; saving GMO seed year to year, which denies recompense to the company who created the seeds, or having GMOs present in their fields due to genetic drift, for the same reason. The genetic drift suits go in both directions; if Monsanto sues farmers for having some GMOs in their field, the famers lose because the patented seeds are seen as being “stolen.” If farmers sue Monsanto, they still lose, as the seeds are still seen as being “stolen.” Weldon calls the lawsuits “a bad move,” arguing that Monsanto is alienating their consumer base.

“The role of patents in plant science is similar to the role of patents in any other discovery,” explains Weldon.  “No company or even a non-profit can be expected to pour millions of dollars into discovery without some guarantee that they will receive appropriate compensation for that discovery.” When I mentioned the patenting of the gene sequences of specific modified crop varieties to Rogosa, she scoffed, “Oh, that’s slavery.” Hanson called it “Swarmy.” Webber, “A horror show.”

After her time at Monsanto, Weldon co-founded the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis. The Center’s mission is to increase plan nutrition, improve agricultural production through technology, reduce pesticide use, and change the negative public reaction to technological or scientific improvements to the food system. Because the Center is not-for-profit, Weldon argues, consumers and farmers are more likely to trust the research, that GMOs are good for farmers, the environment, and consumers. She dreams of a scientific park with government, scientific, and corporate partners to explore new plant science, similar to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus in North Carolina. The budget for NIH research is $60 billion dollars per year, compared to $2 billion for the Department of Agriculture. Weldon would like to see this disparity ended. She cited the important work of the Gates Foundation in Africa around immunizations and AIDS. But, she asks, What good does it do to immunize kids who are going to starve?

✿

One of the oldest seed deposits, dating from 6750 B.C., was found in Jarmo, Iraq. “That’s the fertile crescent,” remarked Hanson. “That’s the cradle of agriculture, at least in the western world.” Rather, it was the cradle of agriculture. Heritage varieties of wheat, lentil, and chickpea seeds were destroyed along with the Iraqi seed bank during the invasion of Baghdad in 2003. The building where they were housed is the now infamous Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib. Today, 95% of the wheat in the Middle East is grown in Midwestern United States.

The realities of a globalized world are increasingly apparent in agriculture. War, disease, and natural disasters can brutally destroy hundreds or thousands of years of work in a few moments. So too can GMOs through genetic drift, depending on one’s perspective of the issue. GMO strains have already contaminated the gene pool of many native, heritage, and wild varieties of Mexican corn. It is doubtful that these varieties had already made it into Suzanne Webber’s beloved Mexican seed bank. In some ways, seed savers and multinational corporations have the same goal as farmers did ten thousand years ago, at the beginning of agriculture: to prevent future starvation. For the next ten thousand years, seed banks will serve to safeguard and perpetuate human existence.

Seed banks are a type of gene bank where seeds are stored. As of 2007, there were 1,400 operational seed banks worldwide. Every collection is of a different size and makeup. Most are regional, to protect indigenous and heritage varieties of a particular area, or species that have fallen into agricultural disuse. The types of seeds vary widely, from rare decorative species to genetically diverse crops. Those who keep the bank must “grow out” the seeds every few years to ensure that the seed remains young and viable.

According to the Kew Gardens Millenium Seed Bank Project, 10,000 seeds of a certain variety is the optimal amount to save. Five hundred to serve as the base population in case the wild population is destroyed, 100 to standardize germination, 650 for viability monitoring, 1150 to duplicate at another bank, and 5000 to distribute to those who request seeds. Who can access the seeds varies by bank: they are not open to the general public, and only certain organizations, international and regional trusts, or governments can remove seeds. One bank, though, is untouchable.

The Svalbard Global Seed bank lies beneath a snow-covered mountain on a remote archipelago halfway between Norway and the North Pole. Known as the “Doomsday Vault,” it is supposed to be the ultimate insurance against mass starvation and death. Since it opened in 2008, the vault has raised interesting questions for conservationists. Bank managers now place much more emphasis on saving seeds with traits that may be needed in the future, such as surviving in a colder climate or with less water. Deposits sent to the bank must exist in at least two other banks, and must be wrapped in foil and sent in sealed “black boxes” that are not to be opened, unless they are the last viable seeds of that plant in existence.

Suzanne Ashworth, author of the foundational seed saving guide Seed to Seed, wrote, “The seeds that gardeners hold in their hands are living links in an unbroken chain reaching back into antiquity.” This no longer seems to be true. Today, the seeds are links to the future of food, and of civilization.

✿

Kate Pawling was dressed for a casual Friday when we met in early March at the NEWFS farm. Wearing a black Dropkick Murphys t-shirt, jeans, and tall brown work boots, she perfectly complemented the newly built barn of wood, glass, and steel, a study in asymmetry. Through the barn’s massive windows, bare trees loomed across dry grass, shadowing small, opaque greenhouses. Watering delicate seedlings in the bright, airy back room, Pawling expressed her concerns with the warmer-than-usual weather.  As New England plants are acclimated to a long winter, the plant-storage greenhouses are not temperature regulated—the seeds take their germination cue from the last freeze. But this year, “Some of them are already germinating” at least a month ahead of schedule. Due to this unexpected temperature shift, some will die.

In addition to the seed saving equipment, the organization also has a brand new seed bank, the purpose of my visit. NEWFS was quite pleased with it, according to Pawling, though they were looking into getting it fireproofed and finding a backup power source.

Pawling led me to a darkened corridor. Next to the massive door was a control panel to regulate temperature (currently 15ºC), and humidity (27%). She pulled open the door with both hands, tilting her body backwards.

The room was cold, but not unbearable. White stippled plastic covered the walls –it was like being in a refrigerator the size of a walk-in closet. Shelves upon shelves of neatly labeled boxes containing seeds in paper packets lined the walls. A table ran the width of the room, replete with a microscope, scale, and bag sealer to inspect, measure, and store seeds. To their left was, perhaps, a tasty snack—no, just seeds stored in a Dunkin Donuts box before being counted. A fan whirred constantly in the background, to keep the seeds cool and dry for long-term storage, at an ideal moisture of 10-12%. Pawling dragged a box off of its shelf, and, balancing it on her lifted knee, rifled through its contents for an example. A messy bun kept her long dark hair from falling into her oval face. The packet emerged, pale white and crinkling. The seeds themselves were inside, protected by a square of paper folded around a waxy glassine envelope to retain some moisture. New England Aster, read the label. The seeds were small and brown, nothing like the elegant purple flowers they could become.

As Pawling closed and locked the door behind us, I thought, just for a moment, of the barn erupting in fire.