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F. A. Q.
- The Genetic Erosion Recovery Initiative:
Heirloom varieties are the most delicious garden vegetables you have ever tasted. These old varieties were selected for flavor and nutritional value instead of shelf life and uniform color. We educate about the loss of these most wonderful veggies.
Genetic Erosion:
The United Nations has sponsored a number of studies indicating the old varieties are being lost (i.e. becoming extinct). Those old varieties are necessary for breading such traits as resistance to diseases and environmental stresses.
Genetic Erosion Recovery:
The varieties of vegetables and other food plants that are actually extinct can never be recovered. What can be recovered are seed samples from endangered species. (Endangered animals have gotten all the press.)
Heirloom Seed:
Heirloom seed is seed of garden vegetables (and other types of plants) which has been handed down from Grandfather to Grandson or Grandmother to Granddaughter (etc., etc.) This seed has often been grown by the family members for hundreds of years; and subsequently, is a separate strain or variety in its own right. Perfectly adapted to the environment in which it was grown.
Seed Savers Exchange:
The Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) is a group of about 1,000 gardeners actively growing both heirloom seed and seed obtained from commercial sources. Some of the commercial seed is obtained by SSE members from a volume, The Garden Seed Inventory which lists seed maintained by only one or two commercial firms and therefore in danger of being lost. It would be lost if the seed company abandons the variety due to low demand, or if the seed company is bought by a larger company and the purchasing company abandons the seed. Another possibility is that the purchasing company is often interested in genetic engineering and keeps the varieties it feels will boost the bottom line locked away until the seed is used, then at that point abandons the seed from that variety. Either way the result is the same, genetic erosion.
What's the big deal?
If you look around this site you will find the answer to that question. The short answer is that we are being denied our genetic heritage by the big seed companies efforts to produce and patent plant varieties much as the "green revolution" deprived much of the developing world of its germ plasm (varieties of vegetables originally present) which had been developed over thousands of years. The varieties which are being depleted are the culmination of 10 thousand years of selecting the best varieties for any given region.
What's the best way to help?
The best way to help is to get involved in growing a garden using heirloom seed (look on the links page for more information), join the Seed Savers Exchange and assist in the preservation efforts, ask friends and neighbors if their grand parents have seed they have been growing that has been in the family for years. Obtain a sample and grow them yourself and/or contact us to help keep them viable, and in a seed bank at Heritage Farms - the Seed Savers Exchange farm and seed bank.
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Genetic
Erosion
Recovery
Initiative (GERI):
Protecting heirloom garden seeds.