Bringing Culture Back to Agriculture - defining 'value' for heritage seed conservation

Heritage (folk, landrace, people seed, traditional, heirloom, open pollinated) seed are varieties that are part of a geographic and cultural landscape. The plants and their people have coevolved in place that has always changed with climate change, human and seed migration. Religious and spiritual practices have included plants. The breaking of bread, ‘bread’ and ‘wheat’ have spiritual significance in many cultures and spiritual practices.

The use and conservation of the old varieties is a challenge in a world that honors hybridization, patenting and commercial control over seed supplies. Yet the hand that holds the seed controls the food supply and farmers around the world are standing up for their rights to grow, sell and save their seed.

Agritourism festivals, tours, local fairs, Slow Food, slow food and food security actions are based on the use of heritage seed.

The seed will only be saved if there’s ‘value’ attached to growing, selling and saving the seed. Agronomically the ‘value’ is always on yield. Cultural context has not been considered ‘valuable’ or important. The variety’s taste, color, adaptability to diversity of growing conditions and social celebrations are of huge local significance.

I want to bring a bit of culture back to named varieties of heritage seeds. Chefs selling story with food, Slow Food, agri tourism and local food opportunities can be generated with this information.

As an example, 'Red Fife' wheat is a nation wide phenomenon that has captured the hearts and palettes of people around the world. The variety fed Canada from 1860 to 1900 but the story is 'value adding' and people want that variety because it has a name and a story. 'Red Fife' is a great example of what we can do when we bring story back to seed and food. For the 'Bread and Wheat Festival' I designed in Victoria in 2007 I asked songwriter Phil Vernon to create a song about 'Red Fife' Wheat. http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/philvernon2

The spiritual links people have to plants, for example ’wheat’, have been ignored in a world that has commoditized food crops to globalize, standardize and trade. Conservation of varieties has always happened with farmers yet laws in every country are pressuring farmers to abandon heritage varieties.

Stories, songs and music set heritage seed into a context rooted in cultural diversity and celebration of ‘life’ and the seed cycle of sowing, growing, harvest and saving seed.

In 1989 I started ‘Seedy Saturday’ in Vancouver B.C. with a hope of bringing together ‘community’ to share heritage seeds and the stories around the seed. This event is celebrated annually in over 80 communities across Canada and spreading through the U.K. The event helps people realize that they are a community linked to each other and to seed.

With some private donor funding I will continue to use my 'cultural comb' to collect stories, songs and visual images of artwork, designs, textiles, etc that have been inspired by grains and vegetables. I am also interested in songs that celebrate the growing cycle as well as the practices of growing food.

As people move from rural settings there is great risk of loosing the stories, music and art that comes inspired from people's connection to plant and place.

As cultures loose their link to local food so too can the loss of stories and songs be lost. As young people are drawn to the local food movement so too can new songs be created to sing to the seed and celebrate the growing cycle.

To record and make accessible the information collected I will set up a database in collaboration with the Library project that Seeds of Diversity www.seeds.ca is putting together. This cultural aspect of our culture with producing food has been neglected in our focus to produce 'more', the use of hybrids, restricted lists of approved varieties and commoditization of 'food' like 'wheat'.  

The database will record the adaptability of varieties in various bioregions and provide opportunities for people to match varieties to their current and predicted climate conditions.