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Open Source Programmer Needed

Open Source Seeds and Open Source Software

I hope by now there are a number of readers of this blog who understand these two principles are one and the same.  Vandana Shiva famously talked about this in an Internet video, and I’ve certainly talked about this here before too.

It’s not like you can’t grow OP seeds in your garden by day and surf the Internet with Windows at night, but if you do it’s a bit like growing both OP and commercial F1 seeds in your garden at the same time.  There’s nothing wrong with this, but some will see it as a small conflict of ideologies, and often people don’t do it themselves for this reason.

This is because the principles behind non-commercial seeds and non-commercial software are pretty much the same.

Inventorying Genetic Resources

One of both the strengths and weaknesses of today’s genetic resources is they are spread all over the world and tucked away in different places.  There are an estimated 1700 genebanks in the world, most in different localities and jurisdictions.  Probably even more important are farms and gardens all over the world, each with their own important collections of plants.

No less importantly, there are increasingly people offering their own collections of seeds for trade, often over the Internet like the Bloggers Seed Network.

The diversity of locations is a strength because if something happens at one location or with one collection, the damage can be isolated and duplicates that may be stored elsewhere can be used to replace the losses.

This diversity is a weakness because it can both be difficult to locate needed genetic resources, and more importantly it can be difficult to detect when important resources are lost.

Garden Seed Inventory

I’m not the first person to have an idea like this.  Kent Whealy, cofounder of the Seed Savers Exchange, identified a similar problem in the 1980s which led him to compile the Garden Seed Inventory. This is something he more or less kept up to date until the time he was forced to leave the SSE a few years ago.

Kent noticed there was a lot of consolidation in the seed business in the US and Canada, and every time a seed company went out of business or was taken over by another part of their inventory was lost.  He noticed a lot of OP varieties were disappearing in this way, and no one was doing anything about it because they weren’t noticing it.

These inventories published by Kent were catalyst for a number of things.

First of course were the SSE themselves who began to purchase as many of these seeds as possible before they were lost, and added them to their collection.  This became a very important part of the work of the SSE.

A number of other people were motivated to start maintaining them as part of their private collections, and people like George Stevens of Synergy Seeds even started seed companies based on the idea of protecting these seeds that were being lost.  At one time Synergy Seeds was identified by Kent’s Garden Seed Inventory as the 13th most important source of non-commercial OP garden seeds in all of North America.

More Complexities

The world is a much more complex place than it was at the time of the Garden Seed Inventory.  Most importantly the issue of genetic resources has become much more visible in light of climate change and peak oil.  Agriculture needs to change, and genetic resources are key to this.  No longer is the availability of OP garden seeds and consolidation of seed companies in North America the focus of attention, but rather it’s the world as a whole.

Our genetic resources are threatened by personal greed, like we’ve seen at the Seed Savers Exchange and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

We’ve seen massive consolidation in seed companies worldwide, leaving Monsanto owning most of them.

We’ve seen the introduction of a number of very complex treaties and changes to intellectual property rights laws.

We’ve also seen the introduction of MTAs or Material Transfer Agreements, in many ways much more insidious that other treaties or laws.  MTAs are a written contract between you and the person giving you the seeds.  Treaties and laws will change and go away with time, subject to different interpretations in different jurisdictions, but written agreements are always and forever!  These are also usually written with future changes possible, so in fact when you sign them you aren’t aware of all the restrictions or obligations that might possibly be placed on you.  MTAs are also something a company like Monsanto can deal with, and have the money to defend in court, but the administration of these is impossible for an independent plant breeder.

The Task at Hand

On the most basic level an Internet based application is needed for the Blogger Seed Network.  Something ordinary people on the Internet can use search for and trade seeds.

At the most extreme level, it should include all plant varieties everywhere in the world, commercial varieties, garden and farm varieties, plant breeders and plant collectors personal collections, and the collections of the estimated 1700 world’s genebanks, together with their legal status with relation to the various treaties and MTAs that are around, as well as their availability.  We will need to identify duplicates and possible or near duplicates.

Obviously what we end up with will lie somewhere in between, and will very much be an ongoing project.  A lot of this information already exists, and key will be identifying and securing it, then figuring out how to best incorporate it.  We need to be able to keep this information up to date, and identify trends.

The basic application needs to be based on non-commercial software with an open architecture, with the possibility of maintaining some confidential information.  It needs to be distributed for robustness, and to prevent the possibility it could be shut down due to laws in one or a number of jurisdictions.  It needs to be kept up to date!

At one time I was paid to work as a software developer, but I was never very good and those days seem pretty far behind me.  I also don’t have time to do much work on the technical side of this.  I can however help with some of the support, planning and architectural details, as well as acquiring data.  You need to be very self motivated, and most of the work will need to be done by yourself or others you find to help you.  Mostly it will be up to you to implement all aspects of this on your own.

Can I tempt anyone into getting started on what promises to be a very high visibility programming project?

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Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Too Many Genebanks?

This is the position of Cary Fowler, Executive Director of the Crop Diversity Trust.

According to Fowler, genebanks are like the economy or an IT company, and when you have too many of them the bubble bursts.  Does everyone see that connection?

Maybe the question should be, does anyone see that connection?

This isn’t the first time Fowler has made use of strange and irrelevant rhetoric.  Take for example his recent statements as board member of the American seed saving organization, the Seed Savers Exchange.  In this case his comments provoked an outcry, accusations of lying and calls for his resignation.  No one was interested in his ridiculous statements about how physically safe the seeds stored in the vault were.  The discussion at hand was the terms and conditions of their deposit at Svalbard, and their use in scientific research and subsequent patenting.  Fowler’s claims of security of the seeds were particularly irrelevant considering most of the seeds were available on request to anyone via the SSE, and in any case the terms of the deposit required samples be made available to other depositors via the SSE office in Decorah, Iowa.

Principles of Biodiversity

Fowler’s statements in this recent newsletter violate many of the basic principles of biodiversity, for example the idea that genebanks should not hold ‘duplicate’ deposits.

This is the argument often used by seed companies with regards to intellectual property rights, or for example lists of permitted varieties used in Europe and elsewhere.  For these purposes, all varieties have to be Distinct, Uniform and Stable, the so-called DUS standard.  While handy for identifying those varieties for patenting, this represents a severe degradation of biodiversity and excludes the possibility of special varieties adapted to local growing conditions, or landraces.

These so-called duplicate deposits referred to by Fowler contain very small and important differences that could be key to developing future crops in a world of climate change and environmental degradation.  It’s also a logical measure to take with important varieties, to store them in more than one place for safety, and genebanks often trade deposits for this purpose.  You can never store any variety too many places!

Basic Greed

The terms of the depositors agreement of Svalbard Global Seed Vault places these seeds under control of the FAO treaty.  This guarantees availability of the deposits for research and patenting by other signatories and can result in a loss of rights by the depositor and country of origin, but gives no rights to ordinary people.  It’s possible for one country to deposit the seeds of another, as has happened with the US depositing a large number of Mexican corn varieties.  This has apparently happened without the permission of Mexico, who is not even a signatory of the treaty.

Fowler’s actions at the SSE and now this attack on the world’s genebanks, only stem from greed and his desire to see more of the worlds genetic resources taken out of the hands of people and local control, and put under the control of multinationals and the world’s more powerful nations.

Few nations and organizations have so far voluntarily placed their seeds in Svalbard.  Now it’s time to put enough pressure on the worlds remaining genebanks, making them fail, and leaving them with no choice but turning their seeds over to him.  After all, fewer genebanks means fewer jurisdictions and fewer negotiations.

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Does Anyone Have ‘Free Seeds’?

As the global economy is struggling along these days, I’m increasingly approached by people with an open request for ‘free seeds’.  In particular the last few months they’ve come from Pakistan.

I believe these requests are genuine, but I’m not really sure what to do with them.

I don’t really have the kind of seeds someone should grow in a climate very different from mine and expect to feed themselves.  I’m also really only prepared to send out small samples, for people to regrow and save their own seeds.

In today’s world we fund organizations like the Red Cross, who are supposed to work for the common good in times of crisis, and in fact do really good work.  When it comes down to helping one person in need, as a world we really fail.  There’s usually no place for these people to turn to.

Does anyone have any suggestions for sources of ‘free seeds’ in cases like this?  I can only imagine requests like this are going to become more common.

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Looking for Fruit Tree Scion Wood

Do you have any interesting fruit trees suitable for temperate climates?  In particular apple, pear, plum, nectarines, peaches, cherry or related?

I’ve posted a little bit about some grafting I’ve done.

This year I set out to buy some more rootstocks suitable fruit tree grafting and started looking into the cost of placing a small order from a number of different nurseries.  At the same time I found a wholesale nursery near where a friend of mine works.  What I discovered was for about the same cost of placing a small order and having it shipped, I could place a wholesale order and my friend could pick it up for me.

Now I just need to find a place for 115 fruit trees in my community garden!

If you’re interested I could trade some rootstock for scion wood.  I might also be able to give you a ‘bench graft’ in return, which is just a freshly grafted small tree.  I could either try to use your own scion wood or that of someone else who sends me something.

I’m not really interested in common varieties, in particular those purchased from a garden center.  Ideally I’m looking for local heritage varieties, where you know the name.  If you have a really good tasting variety you don’t know anything about, I’ll consider that too.

I can also pay reasonable shipping and handling costs if you prefer this over a trade.

If you’re interested, and have something to offer, please get in touch via the contact link on the front page of this blog.

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Yacon, Oca, Mashua and Ulluco

A lot of people are talking about these 4 Andean root vegetables right now.  I’ve mentioned them before in a post on the so-called Lost Crops of the Incas.

I’ve never successfully grown Ulluco.  I’ve tried twice.  It’s a very fussy plant, that doesn’t like it too hot or too cold, and is very sensitive to frost.  Most people I know who have grown this spend a lot of time carrying in- and outdoors, depending on the weather, and this is more work than I’m willing to invest into it.  If you try this, depending on your climate, you should consider it very experimental.

I grew oca and mashua (añu) for several years.

The problem with mashua for me was always getting it through winter storage, as mine would always start rotting sometime around January.  When I can build something better for winter root storage, I’ll probably try this again.  I liked the taste of mashua, sort of like very aromatic potatoes, and I know a lot of people now who are growing it.  This is certainly worth trying.

In the end, I didn’t find oca interesting enough to keep growing it.  It’s also a little difficult for northern locations because it’s daylight sensitive.  This means you have to keep the frost tender plants alive well into the winter and close to the winter solstice.  If I had a garden that was part of my house, this would be easier, but having to travel to a community garden makes this more difficult.  I’ve sent tubers of this to a number of people over the years.

I grow Yacón every year.  I’ve also sent out propagation tubers to quite a few people now, at least 15-20 over each of the last several years.  This is very easy to grow and store, and very prolific in the garden.  I made a document about growing yacon you can download here.

Anyway the main purpose of this post is to formally announce I will no longer be sending out tubers of these plants to people living in Europe or the US.  If you’ve already sent me an email asking about this, I can probably still send it, but I’m not accepting any more requests for the future.

People in the US can get Oca and Mashua from Peace Seeds, and Yacon from Nichols Nursery.  In the UK you can get oca and yacon from the Real Seed Catalogue, and they ship Europe wide.  In addition, Frank offers some of these tubers from his garden too, in limited quantities.  People who live other places who can’t find another source can still get in touch with me, and I’ll try to help.  The other exception is for people who offer seeds or tubers for trade over the Internet on their blog or other public space.  I’ll be glad to be contacted by these people too, but sending to the US is often not possible regardless.

The main problem with sending out these tubers, usually free of charge, is that I’m just not a seed company or nursery and it’s just too much work.  These tubers only go out around now, and I get emails from people all year round asking for them.  I’m not able to manage the logistics of keeping a waiting list and remembering to sent them at the right time.  I also frequently get requests for large numbers of tubers or to have them sent in a special way, declared a special way for customs, and so on, and if you have special requests like these you should be ordering from a company anyway.

In addition, of the probably 100 tuber samples I’ve sent out in the last few years, hardly anyone has gotten in touch later to tell me how it went and I’m not aware of anyone re-offering them anywhere.   All it means is I get busier and busier each year as the popularity of these tubers grow, the availability of the tubers in Internet seed trading doesn’t increase and I have no idea if what I’ve sent out is even still being grown.