Sowing Seed Stories w/ Hudson Valley Seed Company

looking at seed Catalogus. I used to joke around and I started looking at seed catalog with the way I looked at Playboy when I was fifteen. Um, it's just fascinating. Um, the amount of breeds and then the stories behind all these seeds. And this year were all talking about seeds. Seed. Yeah, we're talking about the seed shed. Um. What does seed shed do? So I'm Ken Green. I run a nonprofit called seed Shed, and I'm the founder and creative director

of a seed company called Hutson Valley Seed Company. Seed Shed focuses on seed justice issues and so we work with communities, um that are facing challenges around their seed and we also do seed literacy education UM and work to improve UH seed culture UM. That is people's understanding of seeds and the role of seeds in their lives. So let's start there. I guess people don't have a deep understanding of seed um. They don't understand I guess

what it means to them. And so someone someone listening in today I would think like, well, why should I care about seeds? How do I interact with seeds? And what would you tell them? Well, you know, seeds are this invisible part of our lives that UM, we don't even think about day to day, but are affecting us day to day. They're an essential and yet invisible part

of our everyday lives. UH. And when we think about some of the bigger issues that we're facing globally, seeds many times are at the root of that, whether that's about how seeds are grown, how seeds are shared, how seeds are commodified UM. And so that's part of my work is how do we pull back that curtain and get people to understand UM where they intersect with seeds.

You know, if people understood that four companies control about six of the seed UM, that would probably be alarming and if they are alarmed by that, why should they be alarmed by that? Well, it's yeah, it's a really

interesting statistics. So there's a I'm not sure if we've seen the graphic that Phil Howard from ms YOU created that's called consolidation of seed resources, and so it shows how over time there's been a consolidation in the industry UM by fewer and fewer corporations controlling more and more of the planet's commercial seed resources. So right now we have three multinational corporations UM really in control of the bulk of seed resources on the planet UM and they're

all pharmaceutical and biotech corporations. So that's concerning because you know, they're not nutrition focused or food access focused UM or thinking about you know, regional adaptation or climate change or all of these issues that we're facing that are connected to seeds and our ability as communities to feed ourselves.

They're focused on a very specific type of profit, which is either bundling UM seeds and seed breeding with pharmaceutical delivery or bundling seeds and seed breeding with chemical inputs UM. So you know, for many of us, we think that's not the right kind of folks to be controlling seeds and seed access and food and food access. Right, and we're talking about the seeds that we're talking about is corn, soy uh, what else? I mean, We're not talking about

you know, someone growing carrots in their garden. Yeah, But that's the thing. So that that graphic, the consolidation of seed versus graphic. You know a lot of people look at and look at that and feel really alarmed, and there are reasons to feel really alarmed, But that graphic doesn't show all of the amazing, inspiring, good work that's happening within communities and small regional seed companies and seed

nonprofits and seed advocacy organizations and community seed initiatives. There's this whole entire landscape of seed happening UM, which recognized that we have this loss of genetic diversity and that there's something we can actually do about it by working together. And so more and more there's gardeners who are growing things that are not attached to that map UM. But it's still a very small percentage compared to the global seed industry. Because I think this was a quarter true

to that good food comes from good seeds. Can you can you explain that what is a good seed? Wow? I mean that's a loaded question, and you know you're going to get different answers from different folks. For me, when I think about good seed, you have to think about all the interactions and interconnections of that seed. So where did that seed come from? Who grew it? How has it grown? How was it shared? Um? Who gets to tell that seed story? Is? Is it being told

by the community? Um? That represents the origins of that seed? Or was that seed appropriated in some way at a certain time? Are stolen at a certain time? Uh? And we're only hearing part of the story. So to me, a good seed is where you know, you know the story, You have a respect and understanding of the origins of that variety. UM. And that the the system that that part that seed is part of. And what I mean by that is you know how who grew it, how

it was grown, and how it was shared. That you feel like all of the people involved in that chain of sharing that seed hand to hand to hand to hand until it gets to your garden, that you feel good about all of those practices, um. And the values of those folks match your values And it doesn't always line up that well. You know, you do the best

you can. But you know, even when we're looking at just you know, one piece of this, say organic, you know that you want to have an organic garden, and you know treating the earth a certain way, uh through using organic practices is part of your values of of how you want to garden. Why aren't you buying certified organic seed? And people say, well, you know, I'm only worried about organic because you know, for things I'm putting in my body, things I'm eating. But of course organic

is really a practice. So if you're buying seeds that aren't certified organic or used you know, grown using organic practices, then you're actually supporting someone treating the earth in a

way that isn't aligned with your values. But we can look at race, we can look at gender, we can look at access, we can look at food justice, we can look at social justice, we can look at environmental justice, we can look at all of these different ways where that act of putting the seed into the soil and growing it involved many, many, many people, not just for

that particular seed. But you know, going back in history and do all those values line up for you, And it's hard to know sometimes there's not a lot of transparency in the commercial seed industry. We'll be back with more citizens Chef, take me through one of those stories. I mean, is there a particular seed or particularly breeder, uh that you want to highlight? You know, is there a seed in your catalog from Hutla Valley Seed Company

that you can tell that story? I just love love to hear its story about one particular seed, one that excites you. Um, give me sell me that seed. Yeah. Well, so there's so many different stories and different kinds of stories. One that I've been sharing more is about auto Phile flint corn. Okay, it's a I mean, the corn is just gorgeous. The ears have this golden, rich, deep golden glow to glow to them. It's not just that sort of you think of like a yellow corn sort of

that pail. It's there's you can tell, there's something special about it. And it makes the most amazing polenta, Like I have never had better polenta than is made from Auto Phile. And we carry that we being huts of Valley Seed Company, we carry that in our catalog. Um, and we have been telling the story of that seed as it was past to us that it's an Italian heirloom variety that was developed in Italy, specifically for polenta Uh.

It was brought over here and given to someone who gave it to someone else who I happened to know the farmer, and he gave it to us, and we've been doing our own selections to make sure it stays adapted to the Northeast. And we also have our own particular feelings about what the colors should be, and what the size should be, and what the texture should be when it's when it's ground. So we've been telling that

story of this Italian heirloom. But then in my work with the nonprofit, the story totally changed, and so I was having a gathering. We work with the Aquasas Mohawk community in northern New York, in the indigenous community up near Canada, Yes, exactly. So we work with them, supporting them and growing some of their uh indigenous varieties that

are disappearing. And they came down for an and we were cleaning seed together, and I wanted to give them a gift while they were here, and I gave them some ears of the Auto phile A And I'm telling them the story and my friend Rowan White, who's an indigenous seakeeper who runs the Indigenous SeaKeepers Network, was there and she looked at it and she said, this is our corn. This is eight row flint corn. This is

the corn of my people. And so, you know, these stories that are past us, you know what part of that story are we telling and retelling? We can go further back with these stories and really think, oh, yes, of course corn came from here European Uh. Colonists took many of those varieties back to Europe where they continued to change and be adapted and be selected, and then they came back with immigrants, um from those European communities.

But there's this longer story here of sharing seeds between cultures. And so now you know, we had to go back and say, okay, we want to tell the full story of this variety and not just the latest story that was past us. All right, Does this particular variety express itself differently? Say in Italy? Are in in in New York? Uh? Sorry I couldn't there a regionality too, is there? Does this this particular seed express itself differently, say in Italy

versus uh, you know New York State? Uh, is there a regionalities even though it's the same seed in the same variety, does it does it? Does it express itself differently in different regions? It does better or worse than different regions? Yeah? Yeah, all varieties have some amount of of ability to be resilient and adapt to different areas. Um. But there's a varying degree. Corn happens to be very

widely adaptable. Um. But like I said, when we got the corn um and started growing it, we saw things that we thought we could improve by doing selections in the field so that it would be more regionally adapted. All right, So when the average person hears, you know, heirloom, the word airloom, whether it's tomato or the other heirlooms, what what what does that mean? Which? What should they know about that word? Visa the particular variety of tomato are are you know p or something like? Yeah? A

lot of misconception around that words. Yeah, and my my, it's almost used as a marketing word now it doesn't seem mean Yeah, it's changed so much over time, and my feelings about the value of the word have changed. When I first got involved in seeds, people like I would say heirloom seed, and people would be like, what does that mean? They had never heard something a plant

called an heirloom before. UM. And when I first started using the term, what I really was trying to communicate was that there's more value to a seed than just its commodity value. You know, what, what am I going to harvest? How much am I going to harvest from

this plant? And just like when we passed down objects in a family from generation to generation, and that object may have a lot of cultural or sentimental or nostalgic uh and family history value to it, but not actually be valuable, like if you try to sell it an eBay kind of thing. Um, it's a way of saying seeds are also passed down generation to generation, hand to hand that way, and that there's more value than just what is going to grow it. It comes with all

of the history and all of these stories. So you know, it was a like a value, but it's really changed over time, um, how people are using it and UM. And also part of it for me was feeling that all of these stories, and this is related to the auto pheela, many of the stories that we're being told about heirlooms were specifically European UH stories UH. And many of the indigenous stories UM or diasporic stories of these seeds were not being told because they didn't fit into

people's idea of this sort of romantic heirloom UM. And so I don't use the term as much. The other limitation of it is people started getting confused. You know, some people think heirloom means organic, which you know, it doesn't have anything to do with the growing practices. Um. Some people just think of heirloom as like good um. And not all heirlooms are are amazing. So some are way better than anything else you can get. So it's

there's a limitation to it. And I also people started using it almost as a way of freezing things in time of saying like here's the history of this overcity, let's preserve it. Um, Like what what actually preserves it? Preserves diversity? I mean, if we only grew one tomato, I never want to be boring as hell. But number two, if if there was something that was that was particular pest are bacteria that was affecting that one particular tomato,

we can lose tomato. Yeah, I mean I guess I can be simplifying things obviously, but but how important is that diversity in in in seeds? Yeah, I mean heirloom. Really, that term, once it caught on, really did help people think about genetic diversity and the importance of having lots and lots of different varieties with different tastes and different adaptations and different colors and different histories. It really helped

UM spur this whole movement around diversity. But we want to continue to increase that diversity, not just like you know, oh, this is all we have left, just like freeze everything in time. There's so much work being done to increased diversity, to create new varieties UM. And there's very ethical and responsible ways to do that, and there's unethical and irresponsible ways to do that UM. And so you know, I

like thinking about the heirlooms of tomorrow. What varieties are we creating today that sixty hundred years from now someone will be like, this is an heirloom variety that's worth hanging on to um and tells the story, tell the story of that, right, and the honey nuts, the honey nut squash comes to mind, which is kind of a new type squash. Yeah, if it is something, do I have my do I have my my, Do I have that right? It's it was a new a new breed

of squash that was produced by Michael ms Eric. Yeah, so that's a yeah, yeah, that's a really that's a story I've been working on for a little while now. Um and again, like the auto phile a, people are telling you know, the latest slice, most recent slice of that story. Um. You know it's being popularized by the

use of celebrity and a specific breeder at Cornell. Just to just give the background of Cellar being Dan Barber, chef who was uh it is considered one of the best restaurants in the world, and this is uh sort of his mission was to look at the way uh plant breeders were breeding for traits that weren't necessarily making food delicious, but we're used for other reasons and so

that's that's UH. I just wanted a little background on that, right. Um. When you talk about ethics, ethics in in uh creating new hybrid what what are the ethics behind that or where should they be? What are your ethics? Well, I mean the honey nut is a good example of sort of thinking about a certain part of ethics, um, which is you know, who gets credit, who gets to take credit? And looking at honey nut, you know, very close, you know,

not very far behind. Michael Mazourik's breeder at Cornell is Molly John who started that whole breeding project which was actually a participatory project, UM that involved a lot of people, you know, creating that variety. And then if we look behind that, we actually see that there's breeding lines from indigenous communities, from Turkey, from the Sephardic people. Um. You know,

there's all these other stories that are not being told. UM. And it's interesting, you know when we look at it and the most recent story being told is um, you know, from white men. UM, when there's women and people of color and indigenous communities that are all part of that story. And why isn't that being told? Um? But in terms of hybrids, a lot of people want to set up this. You know, open pollinated is good and hybrid is bad.

Open pollinated being a variety that if you know what you're doing as a seed saver, you can grow it. You can save seeds, you can plant them again and it will grow true to type. It will grow the same plant, the same fruit, the same taste, the same days to maturity all of that, Whereas a hybrid is something that was created using you know, very specifically bred parent lines that are then crossed to create a first generation offspring which has the specific traits that the breeder

was looking for. Uh, And if you save seeds from that, it reverts back to random characteristics of the parent plant. So you've taken away that kind of ability to have independence. Right, So if you were if you were to save those seeds as a farmer, as a garden shave those seeds and plants on the following year, you're not going to get the same right, the same food direction. So it

creates a dependence on the commercial seed source. But that commercial seed source also put a lot of resources into creating something that potentially is going to perform really well for you on your farm. So it's not on average on yeah, on average, how long does a breeder work

on that particular breed that hybrids on average? Yeah, it sort of depends on what, you know, what part of that process you want to stop the time clock on um, but it can be a few years to a decade or more um depending on the plant family and depending on the traits that they're actually working on UM and

also the processes that they're using UM. Whether there's more technologically drifven processes UM for creating that like being able to map out the genetics and UM you know, pin point um genes and processes to create traits, or if you're doing it more through selection and growing large populations and so it really depends on the process and what tools you have access to and what traits you're trying to change or improve. It's sort of like the concept

of seed sovereignty UM. I think we hear that thrown around a lot. What what does what does that mean to you? I mean, there's food sovereignty, this idea that the people who produce food UM, who are toiling in the fields should have more control over that that that process have seed sovereignty work into that as well. Yeah, so there's a whole bunch of terms that seed shed the nonprofit that I run have we've been really trying to dig into seed ethics, seed justice, and seed sovereignty.

There is no hard and fast definition, I would say right now, what we're looking at and thinking about is what do communities need to grow towards seed sovereignty? With seed sovereignty being a goal of canna see can a community actually manage its own seed source using the cultural

values of that community? UM? So that can look different depending on what type of community that we're looking at, but it would require setting up seeds systems within that community, UM that give that community independence in what varieties are they growing and saving seed from? What are the practices that are being used to grow and save those seeds, and what are the systems that are in place for

sharing those seeds within that community. It's fascinating, UM. I guess before before we leave ums, the last question is started out by asking this question why should people care um? And how they how would they interact with this and so? UM the average person whether they're shopping at a supermarket are I mean you think about chefs that are writing menus, what should they be focused on? Should they be focused on the because I started thinking about this a lot recently.

Should we start talking about the variety of that character that squash are? Are that p as opposed to just well it's a leak? What what kind of leak is it? And should should that be on menus? And and is that a way to sort of get the idea across that that it's it's the varieties are so much more

important than the actual you know, vegetal itself. Yeah, when I so part of se Chaid, we do see literacy education, and I've gone to restaurants and done he literacy education in the restaurant with the chefs and the cooks and the servers and everyone who works there to really talk about where do seeds come from? What kind of choice do you really have in terms of varieties, what do those choices limit in terms of what you're able to

serve people? And what is the value of putting the name of the variety on your menu instead of just broccoli? Because there's so many different kinds of broccoli, and there are differences between all of them, and there's different histories and stories that come with them. So you're sharing that story just as much as you're sharing the flavor. The story is coming through that. So Yeah, my fantasy world absolutely menus of the names of varieties on them uh

as just a regular practice, uh for sure. Um. And I think that the other piece to me, that the other part of your question to me, you know, why should people care about seeds? And sometimes it's really hard to just talk about it and get people to care. When we do seed saving workshops or when I do see literacy education, and I get people touching seeds and looking at the seeds and having a sensory experience with the seeds. Uh and you know, slowing down and taking

that time to be with seeds. Something really transformative happens every time. And it's not something I can teach, it's not something I can write about. It's really this relationship, this moment of connecting with the seed as yourself and all the stories that are embodied in you, your personally history and your family history and your ancestors with this tiny what looks like an inanimate object that's actually a

living organism sitting in your hand. And when people start to make that connection that this little tiny thing is alive and that we all come from seed savers. We all come from ancestors who had their own varieties based on where they were in the world, that they had that relationship with that plant and save those seeds and pass them on generation to generation. Doesn't matter who you are.

Your ancestors saved seeds, and you can start doing that again or make decisions that support other people doing that again. That moment is when people start to care. And so the more we can get people touching seeds and being able to have that direct relationship, uh, maybe that will lead to menus with the names of righties on them eventually, UM, and a whole lot of other wonderful transformative things. I'll

try to do my part. So you have all these these art illustrations on your packets, your seed packets, can you just describe one and why you're why you're doing this. So if you go to Hudson Valley Seed dot com, uh, and you click on the link that says art packs, Oh, that's where that's what we call the seeds, that feature of the art, and then you'll just see them because the rest of the catalog, you know, just has the

images of the variety of photos of that. Right, why don't you describe Let me let me let me pick one. This is great. Who does the illustrations. So every one of our packs that we call art packs with the Hutson Valley Seed Company are they're created by a different artist. So we have a call for art and artists apply and then I play matchmaker and I think that artist

totally needs to meet that plant. This plant story or something about this variety has a lot in common with this artist in the way they create art and see the world. Hell, come up. I tell the artists the story of that seed. The artist interprets it through their art, and then that gets put on this special kind of oregonmy folding seed pack that we offer. That's fantastic. So I'm looking at the um can you can you can

you walk us through that illustration? Yeah? So every plant story is different, and some have like real deep, you know, stories about history and you know, understanding of the world. And uh, that one, the artist really was thinking about the experience of being near the plant, So instead of thinking about the history of it or where it came from, it was really she wanted to capture this in the moment, uh, feeling, and so she created this whole garden setting. What's happening

in the garden? UM when you're sitting near the and you're you know how this very distinct smell to it. It attracts hummingbirds. So you get to observe um the natural world, um and invite the natural world into your garden. It's a very relaxing plant in terms of the scent, in terms of the tea that's made from it. Um. And so I think that's what the artist was trying to capture, is just that in the moment experience of

having that plant in your garden. H the visual there's some wicker furniture and there's a little tea set up, so it's like tea time and you have to sit back and watch the garden. You know. My my histor story had a whole box filled filled with the anisissup And it was the first year I had bees, and my honey tastes like it had a very very pronounced its flavor. It was fantastic. And the following year I didn't have as much hissip and I actually moved the bees a little bit because they were in a in

a bed. Uh. Anyway, I had a move in the sound of and I haven't only captured that again. Um, but anyway, UM, kind of thanks a lot. This is this has been a has the conversation. Yeah, thanks for chatting. Happy, Thanks, happy to meet you. And I'm always game to talk about anytime. You don't want to talk about seats some more.

You're all right, Thanks, okay, Thanks everyone. Citizen Chef is executive produced by Chris Brass, Jodas, produced by Gabby Collins, and it's always a special thanks to a place to the table. Citizen Chef is a production of High Heart Radio. For more podcasts like this, this I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your favorite shows.