Organic Seed Alliance

I'd like to draw attention to an organization, the Organic Seed Alliance, not because it's new, but because they have been doing some amazing work in the last few years. And because they have a model for collaborative seed saving, education and advocacy that could easily be emulated by regions outside of the Northwest.

To give a taste of their ideology, I've copied this from their Vision Statement...

VISION: Seed is both our common cultural heritage and a living natural resource fundamental to the future sustainability of food production. Proper stewardship of our genetic resources necessitates not only its conservation, but careful management in a manner which allows seed to continually evolve with challenges of the environment, cultural practices of sustainable agriculture and the need to feed people. Through advocacy, collaborative education, advisory services, and research we work to restore and develop seed varieties for current needs while safeguarding invaluable genetic resources for future generations.

They have recently won a court challenge against the introduction of Round Up Ready Sugar Beets in the Northwest, which can be read about on their blog, seed broadcast. But most interesting to me are their publications, (which by the way have been licensed under the Creative Commons, allowing the information to be freely distributed and used, as long as no money is made by doing so). Their field guides on seed production are the most detailed, specific seed saving publications I have read, with truly good applied science and organic cropping techniques. Not only that, but they are an alliance, or collective, of organic farmers in a bio-region who organize to pool their resources, land, time and expertise to breed vegetable, herb and grain varieties that meet both the changing climate conditions, as well as the low-input techniques of organic food production.

Their model is participatory, re-engaging farmers in our once openly held seed heritage. To quote them again, on education...

In addition to this loss in genetics there has been a concurrent loss in the base of knowledge and skills necessary to properly steward and improve plant genetics in a ecologically and ethically sound manner. Farmers, once the primary seed stewards around the globe, have rapidly been removed from the seed circle - no longer participating in plant breeding or conservation. Only a few generations ago, the practices of on-farm seed saving and basic crop improvement were not only common, but necessary.

And their ethics incorporate social justice, environmental stewardship and food security through the advocacy of maintaining intellectual property in the Public Domain, and out of the hands of private or corporate ownership.

Organic Seed Alliance believes that as humans, we hold an important responsibility to steward resources in a manner that is just, equitable and recognizes the needs of current and future generations. We are working with farmers, breeders, lawyers and ethicists to develop a philosophical approach to seed development and stewardship that will include recognition of the valuable contributions of traditional agriculture and indigenous communities, promote farmer's rights to save and improve seeds, and support the long term integrity of the genetic resource of seeds. We believe this can be accomplished while recognizing and compensating for the investment of breeders, research and development.

We believe that the public good can integrate with commerce and that conservation can coexist with innovation. This approach will incorporate elements of the Open Source software movement, applications of the Precautionary Principle, and recognition of the value (social, economic, nutrient sustaining) of natural resources to future generations.

Appropedia Needs You

Staying connected to the internet is a challenge in rural areas. Services are limited and expensive, and often the perfect site for a homestead is not necessarily provisioned with all of the services easily accessed by city-dwellers. In our case, we are far from agribusiness and the drift of gmo pollens or chemical sprays, which was a priority for us, and we are in an area with relatively affordable land. But the power and phone lines end 500 feet down the road. It was our intention to live off-grid, so this was not a hindrance, but it has been a challenge for us to find an affordable solution to connecting to the internet. Our only option for internet at home is satellite, which is really too expensive to justify itself, and we prefer to search for more community minded solutions. Gratefully, we found affordable public access at a local community center, only 7 miles from our home. We have been members here for over a year, and do all of our blogging and browsing (mostly downloading to read at home) and research from the community center. But with a busy gardening season, weather (we ride our bikes here), and various projects at home, our time online is limited, and it sometimes takes us a while to find all the great sites, blogs, wikis and projects that are springing up all over the net.

In January, we started to brainstorm about the wealth of information related to homesteading, city-steading, and low-impact living solutions we see on the net, and wanted to see it collected into a reference site, something like a wiki site where the various plurality of solutions to issues such as energy and food in a post-carbon world, could be compiled, and easily researched. We thought of starting a wiki site with our own skeletal topics, under the Creative Commons License, and inviting others to contribute their blogs and experiences. But I wondered whether there was a project like this already going, because I know how crucial the internet has been, as a research tool, in my own journey from an agriculturally ignorant city-dweller, and I know I'm not the only one. Well, this week I found that site. Appropedia! And it is set up as a wiki, completely open to editing and contributions. I have only begun to dig in, and have downloaded much to read at home. It looks like there are still plenty of gaps to be filled in, and it looks as though there is a very active team working hard on this site. I am looking forward to contributing our own little golden nuggets of survival skills in a post-carbon world, and I hope you do too!

Bouncing some ideas around

Wow, what a great discussion, thank you all for your honest thoughts and feelings, and your consideration of alternate views. We have regretfully been unable to make it down this week to respond and contribute more to the discussion, the woman who runs the Internet access center here is awaiting her first grandchild, and was out of town this week. She is back just for this morning, so we only have an hour on the net today. Most likely we will be back on Wednesday, after an approaching snowstorm blows over us.


The last thing I did on Monday, when we were here last, was do some research on climate change, and I found a great link. NASA Earth Observatory It shows real time pictures from satellite of features, weather events and ecological impacts. I have been looking for something like this, to be able to step back and take a look at the bigger picture of what is happening on our planet. It shows some images of the bush fires in Victoria, Australia, and only from this heightened view can you really get a perspective on the size of the area burned. It also shows images of drought and crop failures around the planet. And it explained our North American and Northern European deep freeze in January. Stratosphere Influences Winter Weather.


So this week, while we have been snowed in at home, and fighting off cabin fever!, we came up with an idea, and would appreciate some feedback.

We are thinking it would be helpful, especially for gardening and homesteading newbies, to compile some of the tutorials and practical information from this blog, and our experiences in community food systems, and were thinking of creating topical PDF e-booklets. We were thinking of focusing these skill booklets on those who have few gardening and food preservation skills, limited budgets, and limited access to land. As we head into these economic and climactic adjustments in 2009, people who have never grown or preserved food, are going to be starting up gardens as a way to feed their families, and like many others, we would like to help these families meet their needs. These booklets will also focus on community approaches to organizing, such as seed saving, grains on city lots, and non-vegetable foods such as meat, dairy, eggs and honey. Our homestead has been a kind of experimental farm for people who need to start growing their own food in one year, with few tools and less than $1000 a year, to invest in seeds, tools, land, knowledge, etc.

Blogs and Forums are excellent tools for networking and sharing ideas, and for writing out our individual stories of adaption and change. But blogs and forums, although they can provide tutorials and advice, do not necessarily compile and organize this incredible wealth of experience and practical skill. Gardening books can be helpful, but they are an expensive form of information for those on a low budget. We are looking at publishing these booklets under the Creative Commons License, and and then started playing with the idea of putting them up as wiki pages, or as a collaborative website, so they can be updated and amended with new information from all of you homesteaders, urban gardeners, and community organizers. There is a lot of data, experience, and practical information coming from every corner of the world wide web for the backyard gardener, and subsistence homesteader.

Here are some basic topics to start with, that we feel we could contribute some fresh perspectives to, from our own experiences:
Garden Planning
Meet your Staples from the Garden
Garden and Soil Preparation
Crops for Beginner Gardeners
Hygiene in the Organic Garden, preventing pests and disease
Food Preservation on a Low Budget: Drying and Fermenting
Extending the Growing Season on a Low Budget
Seeds: where to get them, hybrid or OP
Seed Saving and Community Seed Lending Libraries
Small Scale Grain Production, even in the city
How to meet your Egg, Dairy and Meat needs in your community
90% Down Power Systems for less than $2000

So what do you think? Would a wiki site be a helpful tool to gather and share our knowledge with others? Many tutorial style blogs could be simply copied in, and linked back. Do you think you would contribute to the wiki? Would you use the site to search for specific information? Or have you found something like this already on the net? What kinds of topics would you find helplful?

We are looking forward to reading all of your thoughtful and thought provoking comments to the last blog post... until then.