I’ve been a member of the Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) for a year now and learning more about the organization as I’ve been going along. I really think some of the things they do are very exciting, and I think it’s a little strange there doesn’t seem to be much discussion about them on the Internet. I guess it’s really the case that people tend to be Internet/Computer savvy or genetic conservationists, but not both. SSE people number in the hundreds or possibly thousands, probably more people than are garden blogging, but for some reason there doesn’t seem to be a lot of communication between the groups.
Many of us have probably stumbled across the SSE website, which primarily promotes the commercial end of the SSE. While the commercial activities provide important financial support to their other activities, and are worthy of support, I think many people don’t fully understand that there is a much larger side of the SSE than what is presented on the website.
In this post I will try to offer a little information about some of the ongoing SSE projects, together with a little background information.
The SSE has has 3 main membership publications: Seed Savers Yearbook, Seed Savers Summer Edition and Seed Savers Harvest Edition. The first of these, the Yearbook, lists all the varieties of seeds members are offering to other members. The purpose of the Summer and Harvest editions are to keep members up to date with both SSE news as well as developments in the world that impact SSE activities. The Summer and Harvest editions have been the inspiration of several blogs posts on Bifurcated Carrots, including this one.
Beyond the 3 main membership publications listed above, there is also a flower and herb exchange publication for people who subscribe separately to this, as well as numerous books and other publications.
When the SSE started in the 1970’s it was a simple seed exchange organization. It has grown considerably since then. In particular, in recent years, it has actively engaged in the storing and growing out of plant varieties. In part this was in response to the growing problem of the SSE not having enough younger members to replacing their older members, who are no longer able to share their seeds. The number of actual plant varieties being traded within the SSE is actually increasing slightly, but the number of people supporting this is declining. In order to prevent the situation that plant varieties are lost because there are not enough people to sustain them, the SSE decided to start saving and growing varieties themselves.
Another motivation for engaging in storing and growing out plant varieties came in the 1990’s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In this time they received the entire collection of the Institut für Pflanzengenetik und Kulturpflanzenforschung (IPK) or Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, in Gatersleben, in the former East Germany. It is believed to be the largest collection of crop varieties that were grown in the former Soviet Union at the time. The SSE is hard at work trying to grow out these plant varieties, and offer seeds to their members. A number of bloggers have been talking recently about how exciting it is to grow new plant varieties. I think the IPK collection could be a very exciting place to look for new varieties to try. A number of IPK varieties are already available to SSE members, and more are on the way.
Then there was the war in Iraq. Of the many injustices suffered by the people of Iraq was the coalition forcing a European style seed law on the Iraqi farmers. Iraqi farmers are now required to only grow crops that are on a list of allowed varieties, which mostly have to be purchased from US and European seed companies and include a number of GM varieties. Before the war Iraq was thought to be one of the most important places of crop biodiversity in the world, and was free of GM crops. A mad rush is underway by SSE people to save as many of these varieties as possible, in the hope that they may one day be repatriated. It turns out a number of Iraqi plant varieties are in the IPK collection, and the SSE is trying to identify these and make them available to SSE members.
The home for the SSE gardens is Heritage Farm in Decorah, Iowa. One of the problems they have is keeping their varieties free from GM contamination. For example, Iowa is where much of the corn in the US is grown, and in summer the air is so full of pollen it is almost impossible for the SSE to isolate their crops from neighbouring farmers, many of which grow GM varieties. As part of their efforts to address this problem, they have purchased some tracts of land that extend into very remote valleys, this is their recent Twin Valleys project. The SSE now owns one of the largest pieces of contiguous land in the state of Iowa, nearly 1000 acres or about 400 hectares. As well as building gardens and orchards on this land, they are also developing it to provide access to SSE members who wish to go hiking and enjoy it’s natural beauty, as well as people who wish to explore the SSE gardens. An increasing number of their gardens are certified organic.
