On November 16 and 17, Stone Barns Center hosted the first-ever gathering of the Seed Lab Advisory Committee, bringing together members of the Seed Lab and a group of independent seed professionals. Together this group is working to name and address the challenges and opportunities facing independent seed breeders. We are excited to share with you the most inspiring stories and most urgent challenges facing the seed community, whose achievements and needs have the potential to address climate change, food sovereignty, nutrition, and flavor.
Seed Lab Advisory Committee
Heron Breen
Heron Breen is an independent seed breeder in Maine. He was a seed professional at FedCo Seeds for over 20 years. Breen is co-founder of the NOFA-NY Northeast Organic Seed Conference.
Julie Dawson
Julie Dawson is a public plant breeder and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the founder of the Seed to Kitchen Collaborative.
Emily Rose Haga
Emily Rose Haga is an independent seed breeder and developed pepper, tomato, and lettuce varieties with Johnny’s Selected Seeds for seven years. She is also the former executive director at Seed Savers Exchange.
Joseph Lofthouse
Joseph Lofthouse is a storyteller, independent seed breeder, and farmer in Paradise, UT, focused on landrace genetics. He is the author of Landrace Gardening and the Landrace Gardening blog at Mother Earth News.
Glenn Roberts
Glenn Roberts is the founder of Anson Mills, a celebrated heritage grain mill.
Ira Wallace
Ira Wallace has been the head of the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange Seed Company since 1999. She is a founding member of Acorn Community Farm, the founder of the Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello, the author of the Grow Great Vegetables series, and a board member of the Organic Seed Alliance.
Photos from the Inaugural Meeting
COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS
Below are some quotes from the meeting sessions and questions for further discussion:
Emily Rose Haga: “Seed is a collective.”
Joseph Lofthouse: “Flavor in a local system is easier to achieve.”
Glenn Roberts: “It’s easier to take a chef into the public domain than a seed person. But if we’re going to eat in fifty years, who are we going to remember? Trust me, it will be the seed breeder.”
Heron Breen: “Plant breeding is different from cooking, because chefs often have a keen sense of showmanship and an end result to share. Whereas for seed breeders like us, the story is a mess, because the learning is ongoing. We are adapting to nature and to our climates; there isn’t an end point or a level of mastery.”
Ira Wallace: “If you have something in your culture that’s important and has been slipping away, if you can take in its sublime deliciousness and beauty and save all its information, we can make sure that these seeds have a place in peoples’ hearts and gardens and plates.”
Julie Dawson: “We decide what food will be grown in the future, and it should be people who make that choice.”
How do we broadcast the exploratory and iterative work of seed breeding?
What kind of visibility can farmers, chefs, diners, and growers offer to bring seed varieties to the mainstream?
How do we cultivate the next generation of independent seed breeders?
Stay tuned for upcoming programs from the Seed Lab. Interested in digging deeper into the Lab? Contact Crops and Seed Director Jason Grauer at jasong@stonebarnscenter.org