As Americans search supermarket produce departments for perfectly shaped, evenly-colored fruits and vegetables, the dangers of a uniform food supply remain hidden. Behind the scenes, an agricultural system based on a few, homogenous crop species teeters on the brink of extinction.
Replacing small farms with thousand-acre fields of a single species has catastrophic consequences for food diversity. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), three-quarters of agricultural crop varieties disappeared during the last century. This spells trouble for anyone who likes to eat.
"If we had no diversity in our plants, we wouldn’t have plants in a couple years," said Steve Jones, director of agricultural research at the Washington State University Extension Center in Mount Vernon.
It’s the same for humans. If everybody had similar genetics, one disease could wipe us all out. Responding to the dangers of a uniform food supply, local farmers are cultivating genetic diversity with their own hands.
"I think of seeds as the fundamental technology afor agriculture," said Dr. John Tuxill, assistant professor of ethnobotany at Fairhaven College. Seed genetics determine the conditions in which a plant will grow and reproduce and what kind of care it needs. Farmers have cultivated diversity for 10,000 years by saving seed from their own crops. This results in genetic variation as plants become adapted to specific environments.
At Wake Robin Farm in Ferndale, Briggit LeClair relies on her own hands to sustain a 10-acre farm teeming with life. As early morning sun burns through the mist, she’s out shoveling manure, building the compost pile that will feed her one-acre garden come spring. The farm is home to flocks of chickens and sheep, copious vegetables, one horse and four humans. LeClair maintains this agricultural diversity through careful selection and tending.
"My philosophy is that if it doesn’t work, if it’s not going to survive, I pull it out," LeClair said. She wants her plants to be fit. If a variety thrives in her northern Whatcom County microclimate, LeClair saves seeds and plants the same strain next season. In the case of winter squash, she has been cultivating a single variety for 22 years.
Sally’s Tennessee Squash is a unique variety full of dry, sweet, dark-orange meat. The seed traveled from Tennessee to eastern Washington to Bellingham, an example of how plants adapt to changing conditions. The seed produces an heirloom variety, one that has retained a distinct set of characteristics for 50 to 100 years.
"I feel pretty honored to carry this seed forward," LeClair said.
After getting her start with squash, LeClair now saves seed from heirloom lettuces, chard, dry beans, flowers and eight varieties of potatoes.
"Anybody can be doing this," said LeClair. She started with a shovel and a half- acre in north Bellingham, and moved to the county when her crops and flocks outgrew the plot. Today, Wake Robin Farm provides eggs, meat, milk, wool and heirloom vegetables for her family and the local economy.
While LeClair wants to promote diversity, she only has two hands. For some crops, the danger of cross-pollination limits the number of varieties one farmer can maintain. In order protect the distinct qualities of Sally’s Tennessee Squash, LeClair has to keep other squash blossoms a mile away.
Fortunately, a neighbor down the road cultivates his own unique variety of winter squash, out of reach of the bees that pollinate LeClair’s flowers. Walter Haugen of F.A. Farm has been perfecting the characteristics of Flame Buttercup squash for 10 years.
"It’s an aesthetic," Haugen said, pointing to a specimen’s square shoulders and deep green skin licked with orange. Besides its eye-catching value, the squash’s meat tastes remarkably like sweet potato.
Haugen developed Flame Buttercup from a mutation and continues to select for genetic diversity. Rather than saving all the seeds from a few fruit, Haugen sets aside a handful of seeds from each squash he cuts open. This technique ensures that his variety retains "elasticity," or enough genetic variation to adapt to changing conditions.
Threats of global warming and species extinction have also prompted high-tech responses. On an island chain north of Norway, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault has been drilled into the side of an Arctic glacier. Constructed to hold up to 4.5 million seed samples, the permafrost-buried chamber won’t rise above freezing–even in an electrical failure. At these temperatures, some seeds can remain viable for thousands of years. But not everyone agrees that seed banks are a functional panacea.
"It’s absolutely essential that we only see seed banks as a back-up, not a primary means of conserving seed diversity on this planet," said Gary Nabhan, world-traveled ethnobotanist and author.
According to Nabhan, farmers have to be actively planting and harvesting seeds, adapting varieties to changing conditions. This is what makes LeClair and Haugen’s work so important.
At the Washington State University Research and Extension Center in Mount Vernon, specialists work with farmers to develop plant varieties especially suited to their location, a process research director Steve Jones terms "evolutionary breeding." They also support preserving local and native foods that people have been cultivating in the region for generations.
"There’s no doubt that we live with a changing climate," Jones said. "How will plants react to that? We don’t know."
That’s why it’s important that farmers maintain diversity in their fields. If one variety struggles, farmers can cross it with another that does well, or find different varieties to sustain them. In order to find these genetic alternatives, someone has to be growing them.
Things Students Can Do
- Join Seed Savers Exchange, Native Seeds/SEARCH, Slow Food, or other nonprofit organizations working to conserve heirlooms and landraces worldwide.
- Write your federal legislators about the importance of funding U.S. germplasm institutions like the Seed Storage Laboratory in Ft. Collins, Colo., and providing support for the Convention on Biological Diversity and other agencies working to conserve crop genetic diversity.
- Buy food from farmers who grow heirloom fruits, vegetables and breeds at farmers markets or through CSAs. Or shop at local groceries, co-ops and restaurants that buy from these farmers.
- Push campus dining services to source more fruit, vegetables, and meat products locally, from farmers who practice diverse crop production or raise heritage breeds.
- On-Campus: Plant a fall garden in the Outback (or a spring garden if you’ll be in Bellingham over the summer to tend it).
- Off-campus: Grow heirloom herbs and veggies in your front or back yard - all it takes is a small patch (or even a sunny windowsill for herbs). Heirloom seeds are readily available in Bellingham from local seed companies such as Uprising Organics.
Mara Mitchell studies sustainable agriculture at Fairhaven College. She has been published in the Whatcom Independent, SageWoman Magazine and the Fairhaven Free Press.