Why Seeds?

We rely on plant materials for clothing, for shelter, for transportation.  We admire beautiful places because of what plants can grow there: the north woods, the savannah, the swamp, the desert.

And most importantly, we eat plants.  Plants determine the cuisine of a region.  Plants make up over 80% of the human diet.  Plants keep people alive.

The abundance of plant varieties (and animal varieties, and even the diversity among micro-organisms, for that matter) is encompassed in the word biodiversity.

Seed Savers Exchange conserves biodiversity by maintaining a collection of over 20,000 different varieties of heirloom and open-pollinated plants, varieties with the ability to regenerate themselves year after year. These seeds (and tissue cultures or other plant materials, depending on how a plant reproduces) have the collective power to withstand unforeseen pestilence and plant disease, climate change, and limited habitat, and to stop culture-bleached dinnertime boredom dead in its tracks.

We need seeds.

Why do seeds need protecting?

In the last century or so, the world has lost 75% of its edible plant varieties. The U.S. has lost over 95%.  That means we only have 5% of the options once at our disposal to comprise most of what we eat.

That might be hard to perceive when we have enough food on our plates, but consider this: According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, only five cereals make up 60% of our calories. A system that depends so heavily on so few crops is quite fragile. Think of the Irish Potato Famine – the use of only one variety of potato led to a catastrophe.  In 1845, the introduction of a new fungus wiped out the primary source of food in Ireland, leading to the death or emigration of some one and a half million people.

Industrial agriculture and the chemicals and machines that it employs have required that farmers, and, more often, scientists breed for uniformity in plants and animals. In the United States in particular, genetically engineered plant varieties have had a devastating impact on biodiversity. According to the USDA's Economic Research Service, since their commercial introduction in 1996, use of genetically engineered (GE) crops by US farmers has increased steadily.  In fact, in 2013, 170 million acres of GE crops were planted in the US, seeds that are patented and cannot be saved and planted again next year.  That’s roughly half of all American cropland.

It’s no wonder, then, that stewards of seed and heritage varieties are scarce.  With no one to teach his or her neighbors and children about the importance of these plants, the art of saving seed dies out, and with it, we lose the precious varieties these mentors safeguarded.

Our Work

Conservation

Seed Savers Exchange takes threats to biodiversity seriously. We maintain a collection of more than 20,000 heirloom and open-pollinated vegetable, herb, and plant varieties, and over 900 varieties of heritage apples.  We take great care to ensure the health and viability of our collection for generations of growers to come.

Each year, we grow out select varieties in preservation gardens to refresh our seed supply. We isolate varieties by distance or in isolation cages to keep bees and other insects from cross-pollinating them, and our staff pollinates these isolated plants by hand.

To maintain accurate records of each variety’s traits, our Evaluation Team grows out other varieties and keeps careful track of them, updating descriptions, and checking for inconsistencies. They taste test the beans, count the seeds inside the peppers, examine the hairs on the carrot greens, and take careful notes.

But Seed Savers Exchange cannot do our best conservation work without our members’ help.  We rely on a two-pronged method we call participatory preservation.

We keep the bulk of our collection in an underground freezer vault at Heritage Farm, with back-up collections in Ft. Collins, CO, and Svalbard, Norway, according to international genetic preservation standards. This practice is called ex situ preservation; seeds are protected in gene banks, and we grow them out as needed to protect the health of the variety. Ours is the largest non-governmental seed and plant collection of its kind in the United States.

Ex situ preservation is important, but it isn’t sufficient on its own.  We combine our ex situ preservation efforts with in situ preservation – Gardeners grow out a variety and save its seeds, allowing the variety to adapt to the growing conditions in its agro-ecosystem.  Without in situ preservation, we miss our chance to select seeds each year for their ability to thrive in changing conditions, leaving ex situ preservation as a sort of museum for varieties that haven’t changed with their environment. Seed Savers Exchange members play an enormous role in preservation by growing out heirloom varieties in their gardens across the country.

The combination of in situ and ex situ preservation allows Seed Savers Exchange to protect more genetic diversity more effectively than would either method on its own.

Press Release: Seed Savers Exchange Celebrates 40th Anniversary

Articles

An Apple a Day, for 47 Years: Apple Picking Season Is Here. Don't You Want More Than a McIntosh?

Oct. 22, 2014 - The New York Times

Heirlooms passed down by Seed Savers Exchange

Sep. 10, 2014 - Harvest Public Media

Sowing the Seeds of Self-Reliance

May 14, 2014 - The Kansas City Star

Seed Savers Exchange: Maintaining a living legacy

Dec. 28, 2013 - The Organic & Non-GMO Report

Looking for some photos to use with your piece? Click above to download photos of our work and farm. Please credit "Seed Savers Exchange" when you use a photo.

For Media Request Contact:

Beth Ryan, beth.ryan@seedsavers.org

 Biographies

Diane Ott Whealy, Co-founder and Vice President

John Torgrimson, Executive Director

Click here for more information

Ask us about our work.