Seeds of Life

Simple Solution
Humans today rely upon just 20 varieties of plants for 90 percent of their food. Experts throughout the world think that this lack of biodiversity could lead to an agricultural calamity. The Irish potato famine, which led to the death or displacement of two and a half million people in the 1840s, is an example of what can happen when farmers rely on only a few plant species as the cornerstone of their crops.

Know your seeds! In just the last 15 years, more than half of the varieties once available have disappeared from seed catalogs. By contrast, Seeds of Change, an alternative seed company, grows over 2,000 kinds of seeds—a hundredfold increase in the number of edible plants available to most people today. The seed-preserving work of backyard gardeners and companies like Seeds of Change, total seed species and their varieties will disappear forever. Helpful Hints
Know Your Seeds! Glossary:

• Fi hybrid: The first generation of seeds produced by a cross (hybrid) of two varieties. F1 hybrids have advantages, including the robust growth known as “hybrid vigor.” However, most are patented, making seed saving technically illegal; the seeds only reproduce using their own pollen (called "selfing"), therefore seed saving is pointless; and many are bred for looks and to have tough skins that resist damage in shipping at the expense of flavor and nutrition. The supermarket tomato with skin like rawhide and a bland, watery flesh is perhaps the best example of what F1 hybrids leave to be desired. (F1 is geneticists’ shorthand for “first filial generation,” the first offspring of a cross.)
• Heirloom: Like the jewels handed down from great-grandmother’s time—they just don’t make ‘em like that anymore. Time-tested varieties that for any number of reasons, such as flavor or local hardiness, have become favorites passed along for generations. The opposite of an F1 hybrid; often, old heirloom varieties are the repository of diverse types that preserve genetic diversity.
• Open-pollinated: Plants that are allowed to pollinate freely within a group. Open-pollinated allows genes to stabilize over generations, producing a variety with reliable characteristics that will cross-pollinate, allowing seeds to be saved and passed along.
• Organic: Although “organic” is a widely abused term, these generally mean seed crops that have been grown according to the accepted standards of organic farming, without the use of toxic or synthetic agents at any stage in the process. Considering that conventional farming often involves fumigation of the soil before planting, treated seeds, synthetic fertilizer obtained from petroleum, regular application of pesticides, spraying herbicides at the end of the growing cycle (“no-till” farming), and fumigation of the crop in storage, this is a radical move indeed.
• Hybrid: As with “organic,” a term that can mean much more, or much less, than intended. Practically all garden vegetables are, strictly speaking, hybrids—even “traditional” varieties of corn are far removed from ancestral corn, which was a humble grassy plant that bore ears an inch or two in length. Hybrids occur between flowering plants in nature all the time, but the gardeners’ definition of “hybrid” is a plant that has been bred to enhance desirable traits—flavor, nutrition, appearance, disease-resistance.
• Untreated: No, seed corn is not naturally bright pink. Seeds for industrial agriculture, and sometimes for the home garden, are treated with fungicides and other toxic chemicals to ensure a high rate of germination. Generally speaking, “untreated” means that the seeds have not been dosed with Captan or Thiram, two of the most common seed preservatives. Thiram is the more toxic of the two by a wide margin, but neither have a place in an organic garden. If a seed supplier does not specify “untreated seeds,” ask before you buy.
• Genetically Engineered Seeds: The DNA of the plant has been changed. A cold water fish gene could be spliced into a tomato to make the plant more resistant to frost.