Seed Banks A Way to Preserve Agricultural Diversity?

I was asked to write a post on seed banks so I started doing a little research. If you simply search for seed banks the two types of sites that come up most are for cannabis and survival seed kits. Since I know the person who asked me to write this fairly well, I am sure she was not asking about cannabis, and she is a pretty avid homesteader so I do not think she is asking about an apocalypse. So I am going to cover this from a biodiversity viewpoint. Seed banks are primarily concerned with heirloom or open pollinated plant varieties. Their goal is to maintain an adequate supply of these seeds in the event of a major natural or man made disaster.

 This would be a good time for a few Rural Economist definitions:

Open Pollinated Seed: a seed from a variety of plant that when the seed is saved from that plant will reproduce a plant true to its parent. These seeds will reproduce reliably season after season.

Heirloom variety: An open pollinated variety which has been cultivated for many years and has shown to be true to type.

Hybrid variety: The first generation of an intentional cross pollination of two different plants in the same plant family. These seeds if saved will have a very low percentage of offspring that stay true to type.

GMO: Genetically Modified Organism. There are a great and ever growing number of foods that have been genetically modified. Genetic modification occurs in a laboratory with biotechnology. DNA is introduced into a plant or animal from a different, many times unrelated organism. DNA from fish, scorpions, other types of plants, and even humans have been introduced into these new "super" seeds. Most of these seeds are patented so even though GMO seed saving is possible (I cannot understand why anyone would want to), it is illegal.

Monoculture: The practice of raising only one type of produce on a large tract of land i.e. corn, wheat, onions, potatoes, etc.

Poly culture: The practice of raising several different types of edible plants and/or animals in close proximity to each other.

Since the advent of industrial farming and the wide spread practice of monoculture the number of open pollinated and heirloom varieties has plummeted. When people stopped growing or at least buying their produce locally many of these old seed types went away. As people stopped buying their food from local producers industrial farmers took over. There are places all over the world that you can go and see hundreds of acres of corn and wheat. There are places where you can see dozens of acres of tomatoes or onions. When producing something commercially you want uniformity.

Hybrids were the first to start taking the place of the heirloom varieties. Hybrids have their place. Nature produces hybrids everyday without any assistance from people. A pollinator does not typically discriminate one type of plant from another. A honey bee will move from one flower to another regardless of plant type (this is why you should never plant your cucumbers too close to your watermelons. They will cross pollinate and the melons will not taste very good). When we go to the grocery store we expect all of the tomatoes to look exactly the same, heirloom varieties do not do this. The hybrid plants can be selectively cross pollinated to always produce results with standard size and color.

Now we have genetically modified plants. The most widely known of the genetic modifications is to make corn and soy capable of tolerating herbicides. Monsanto is the world leader in this research. They have made corn and soy that is "Roundup" ready. These varieties are patented by Monsanto as is Roundup. Monsanto has also made corn that produces a toxin in the kernels that protects the corn from ear worms. One big problem.Some research leads us to believe that this toxin could be what is killing the honey bees. Simple solution is just say NO to GMO.

Okay, so now back to seed banks. Seed banks have been set up in every major country in the world. They contain thousands of varieties of open pollinated and heirloom seeds. If a major event were to occur they would release these seeds to farmers so as to ensure there continued viability.

Some types of seeds are better suited to seed banking than others. There are types of seeds that can be stored for hundreds of years. There were grain seeds found the the Egyptian pyramids that were successfully grown. Other seeds can only be stored for a season or two. Onions are the most common short storage seed. The best idea is to find a group of people who share your interest in heirloom or open pollinated seeds and seed share. By doing this you do not have to have a freezer full of seeds or grow every type of seed you want to keep available. You can do this with friends, with your community or even on a much larger scale. A friend of mine gave me some okra seeds that had been in their neighbors family for over 40 years. I was honored to be given these seeds. I enjoy sharing seeds with people. If this is something that you would like to get involved in check out www.heirloomseedswap.com . This is a large community that is dedicated to preserving and spreading long term biodiversity by the way of sharing seeds.

Together we can

Keep It Rural

Remember to check out the People I Listen Too page, like The Rural Economist facebook page and follow this blog.

 

Becoming a Homestead Ambasador

I talk to lots of people everyday. Nearly everyday a person will say something that opens up the conversation to either prepping or homesteading. When this occurs I jump at the chance to share some encouragement to become more self sustainable. For each person who is trying to take care of themselves without the assistance of government our community gets a little stronger. I have said this before, but no one person can be self sufficient. Not even one single family can attain the required knowledge and resourses to be completely free of their neighbors. This is why community development is so important. A community can stand when an individual or single family will fall. This is one reason the Hispanics in my area are so sucessful. You will rarely see a single Hispanic family in a neighborhood. Hispanics try to settle in pockets sometimes extended families or more than one family in one house.

Ways to promote homesteading are many, but I think the most effective is to lead by example. While in college I had a professor who first day of class stood up and said ,"You have heard those who can do and those who can't teach....you see where I am". This set a tone for the class and not a very good one. I questioned everything that man said. I hope he was smart enough to know that is what would happen. This should not be the case with anything, but it cannot be the case with homesteading. The type of life I am trying to live is not only a mental exercise. The homestead lifestyle is very mechanical and artistic in nature. You can explain how a family grist mill works, you can show pictures,or even record a video of the process, but will will never grasp the full experience until you smell the corn being ground. You feel the heat off the freshly ground corn. Touch the corn meal, ball it up in your hand to check the consistency, and even taste the meal fresh from the stones. My family has ground our own corn meal for over twenty years and it is an experience that I wouldn't take anything for. This can only be learned by doing and most thing dealing with the homestead life are like that.

Everyone I know who is a homesteader does some kind of experiment every year. A friend of mine is planting blue potatoes for the first time this year. I am hoping to do an experiment with modified hugelkultur this year (there will be a lot more about that later). Every year your knowledge base and experience should expand. This should be shared or it will be lost.

The second most powerful way to be an ambassador of homesteading is by giving. Giving is a natural part of the human condition. When we see a person in need we want to reach out and help. One of my goals this year is to tithe from my homestead production. The pastor has already said that the church will find someone in need to give them to. You do not have to be involved in a church to have a positive impact. Few things show the difference between home grown foods and store bought than a tomato. If someone has never tasted a fresh tomato, when they finally do they always ask where you bought it. This is a prime opportunity to talk about learning to grow your own food. Be willing to teach. If you find someone that keeps taking and doesn't try to learn, they may be one of the perpetual takers. Those folks must be left to their own.

Based on the definitions provided in my last blog I am not a picture perfect prepper, but I am trying to become a poster child for homesteading. My strongest point is I am always willing to learn and teach. Together we can build a better future by.......

Keeping It Rural

The Difference Between a Prepper and a Homesteader

The other day I was talking to someone about a generator. In the course of the conversation the guy asked me if I was a prepper. I told him no, that I was a homesteader. Then came the question. What is the difference? I told him that in my opinion a prepper is getting ready for a specific event and a homesteader is just striving for a more self sustainable lifestyle. I have had this question several times recently. When I have the same question repeatedly in a short period of time it is something that needs to be covered.

When I decided that I was was going to write this blog I reached out to the members of my facebook community and the members of the forum on self sufficient homestead www.sshomestead.com . I asked them for input and a consensus was quickly realized.

A homesteader is concerned with being self sustainable or self sufficient. A prepper is more concerned with being self reliant. Now it is time for a some Rural Economist definitions.

Self sustainable - being able to produce enough of a variety of products to be able to trade for anything that is not produced. If I produce all of my own fruits and vegetables and I produce an excess of fruits or vegetables I can use these items to trade for meat or fabric or whatever I think I need.

Self sufficient - being able to produce almost everything you need no matter what it is. In my opinion it is possible for a community or extended family group to be self sufficient but it is extremely difficult for a person or immediate family to be so.

Self reliant -   a persons ability to utilize surrounding or stored resources to make it through an acute short term or prolonged crisis.

A homesteader is always trying to cut costs and improve results. In this way an effectively ran homestead's methods can seem similar to any business. There is one crucial difference between a homestead and a business. Most businesses try to specialize so as to decrease cost of production. A homestead wishes to diversify as much as possible to produce the maximum number of different things that their family needs. A homesteader constantly tries to find ways to use the things they already have on hand and reduce the number of things they throw away. If you will just search the Internet there are hundreds of ways to use an old soda bottle as a planter. A true homesteader is trying to do everything they can for themselves and their families with little or no impact on their neighbors (corporate agriculture will spray pesticides and herbicides with little regard to how it truly impacts the environment).

Both homesteaders and preppers are concerned with food storage. It has been my experience that someone who is purely a prepper relies on inventory i.e. stored food, water, and other items to provide some semblance of normalcy. Some preppers will have up to a couple of years of food stored. A homesteader is interested in storing enough food to make it from harvest to harvest and for a bad season.

A prepper can be a homesteader or a homesteader can be a prepper. There are a lot of overlapping thought processes and each group can learn a lot from the other. We share some of the same goals.
There is one major difference that I have noticed. Some of the hardcore preppers that I know will be seriously disappointed if some type of collapse does not occur. A homesteader does not care if everything stays so good that everyone is riding unicorns and eating rainbows or if everything goes to hell in a hand basket, or as a Phillipino friend of mine used to say a in tin bucket "it gets hot on the bottom faster".

I hope this clears up at least my thoughts on the difference between preppers and homesteader. I do not intend on offending either group.We are all working to be able to take care of ourselves. With the way the world is now anyone who wants to do that should be applauded and has my support. I invite you to share you comments.

Like the Rural Economist on facebook, follow this blog, and check out the People I Listen to page on this blog.

Remember
Keep It Rural