A Blow to Seed Security and Seed Libraries

Our friends from Seed Freedom LA gathering for our first
press conference/rally in 2013

Only a few days from our rebuff at the Los Angeles City Council, a few interesting facts come to the surface that make the story a whole lot more 'interesting,' as in "may you live in interesting times" supposedly an old Chinese curse.  As I begin to write this, I cannot even title it.  I have smoke coming out of my ears and as I realize that Seed Freedom LA was defeated as a part of a much more broad campaign to take seeds from the hands of individual citizens and concentrate our food growing in the clutches of agri-business. 

I wish to introduce you to an essay by Britt Bailey who introduces a new twist to thickening plot on the Environmental Commons page.  I'd like you to go that page and read the whole essay, it covers more than I want to get into right here, but it shows that California's AB 2470, passed in our last legislative session, is part of a national trend where many state legislatures have passed bills so similar that the wordings are almost identical. In all cases they ban municipalities in that state from enacting laws that govern seeds.  

These states include Pennsylvania, Iowa, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Georgia, Oklahoma, Florida, Indiana, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona, West Virginia, Ohio, Kansas, and California.

And just to fluff out our lesson on seed sovereignty being under attack, I include here a link to California's AB 2470.  Just read it and absorb the power grab this bill holds!  It literally sets in place for the Secretary of Agriculture to create lists of plants that shall be grown in California as well as other equally heinous provisions.  

The secretary, by regulation, may adopt all of the following:

(a) A list of the plants and crops that the secretary finds are or may be grown in this state.

Of course today, it looks rather innocuous and dull, but I find this concept a disturbing possibility, especially if it is only one of many laws throughout the nation.  This could effectively mean the loss of all our heirloom crops; the secretary might mandate only GMO crops be grown, it just doesn't pass the smell test.

If we are to have a sane seed (food) policy, this law must go and in it's place a law that makes seed libraries a part of a public policy against the loss of seed sovereignty and creates the legal framework for us to continue our work in making sure our world is seed and food secure.

david

 

Like a New Year's Resolution: A Target!

Burgandy Okra Seeds - "On the hoof" 

A year ago I drew up a list of seeds I thought would be the ones to save – I asked around for others to suggest varieties that I might have missed, but there haven't been a lot of responses.

I was explaining to someone the other day that SLOLA has something like 200 varieties of vegetables in our bank and how I would rather have fewer varieties with larger quantities of each. He suggested that I was postulating the same lack of diversity I decry in the world of seed today.

After thinking about it for a couple of days, I think I have an answer to that accusation: It is better to save a fewer varieties of seed and save them well than to have hundreds of different varieties and save them poorly. I would like SLOLA to save all the seeds that will grow here successfully, but that could easily be more seeds than SLOLA can handle at present.

It is more important that we start where we are (we can't really start somewhere else, can we?) and begin to learn how to save seeds of several major varieties and have them on hand. At present, there aren't that many members who are experienced at growing out to seed. Those who can reliably grow plants out to seed need to apply themselves to growing out the difficult seeds and grow enough out to insure a supply on hand for the rest of our members.

Last year, compiling my list of seeds to save, I was heading east on I-70 through Illinois into Indiana ending up at Ft. Wayne to celebrate Christmas. I was in the back of a car with my little Netbook and using a Blackberry to be online. This year, I'm at home and surrounded by seed catalogs, including the two most often cited as 'veggie porn' catalogs (Seed Savers' Exchange and Baker Creek Heirlooms) and was able to use their listings to create the following list of seeds to save.

In compiling this list, I have relied a lot on my own experience with these different varieties and have selected those first. In addition, I have sought diversity of plants (not all early, but some early, some mid-season and some late, where the varieties allowed that). I also looked for performance in many different criteria – including, hardiness, production, flavor, uniqueness as well as historical significance and, in a few cases, we have varieties to save because they are a family heirloom that might be lost if we don't save them.

Some types of plants have many varieties to save and some just a few. Limiting factors could be 1.) lack of varieties; 2.) lack of varieties that do well in Southern Califonia; 3.) I am not familiar with many varieties and so choose to not make a decision (eggplant is an example) and 4.) one or two varieties are considered sufficient to supply the need. For example, in the case of cilantro, there are several (not many) named varieties on the market, but having grown all the cilantros I've found, the differences are negligible and so I simply list cilantro without any varieties. Slo-Bolt bolted faster for me than the cilantro have self seeding in my garden.

Here's the number one reason to share this: we seed savers in SLOLA need to hear from everyone who has suggestions for varieties of veggies to save. The Seed Savers Of Los Angeles need to build a list of seeds to save – a 'target' for us to shoot for. Email us via the blog or bring your list to any SLOLA meeting – I’ll be willing to add your suggestions to my list. Let's see if we can double this in the coming year!

This is a work in progress! OUR work!

Varieties of Vegetable Seeds I Believe We^* Should Save

Artichokes
	Green Globe Violetto
Beans (nominally Phaseolus vulgaris)
	Aquadulce (Fava) Broad Windsor (Fava) Cannelini Bush Bean (Dry/Bush) Christmas (Lima/Climbing) Envy (Soybean) Golden Wax Bean (Wax/Bush) Henderson (Lima/Bush) Hutterite Soup Pencil Pod (Wax/Bush) Pineschi Family Bean (Vigna unguiculata) Royal Burgundy Bean (Purple/Early) Scarlet Runner (Phaseolus coccineus)
Beets
	Bull's Blood Crosby's Egyptian Burpee's Golden Chioggia Detroit Dark Red Yellow Cylindrical
Broccoli
	DiCicco Nutribud Romanesco
Brussels Sprouts
	Long Island Improved
Cabbage
	Copenhagen Market Cabbage Early Jersey Wakefield Glory of Einkhuizan Mammoth Red Rock Perfection Drumhead Savoy Premium Late Flat Dutch Winningstadt
Carrot
	Scarlet Nantes Carrot Chantenay Red Core Danvers Half Long White Belgian
Cauliflower
	Early Snowball
Chard
	Five Color Silverbeet Chard (AKA Rainbow Chard) Fordhook Giant
Celery and Celeriac
	Giant Prague (Celeriac) Utah Tall (Celery)
Corn
	Black Azte, Country Gentleman Corn Golden Bantam Corn Oaxacan Green Dent Stowells Evergreen
Corn (Popcorn)
	Strawberry
Cucumber
	Armenian
Eggplant
Grains (except corn and wheat)
	Flax Quinoa, Shelly 25 Black Sesame, Light Seeded
Kale	Blue Curled Scotch Lacinato
Leek	Blue Solaise Carentan King Richard
Lettuce
	lBack Seeded Simpson Brune d'Hiver Cimmaron Drunken Woman Frizzy Head Forellenschluss Merlot Merveille des Quatre Saison Parris Island Cos Red Romaine Rouge d'Hiver Rouge Grenobloise Summertime Tango Tom Thumb Webbs Wonderful Yugoslavian Red
Melons
	Charentais Green Nutmeg Hale's Best Metki White Serpent (cucumber) Tigger
Okra
	Burgundy Clemson Spineless Don't Knowcra Star of David
Onion
	Iitoy Red of Florence
Parsnip
	Harris Model
Peas	Alaska Lincoln Little Marvel Tall Telephone Oregon Sugar Pod Sugar Snap
Pepper	Anaheim Corno di Toro Fish Italian Pepperoncini Jalapeno Early Jimmy Nardello Italian Red Marconi
Squash – Summer	Lebanese White Bush Marrow Zucchini – Lungo Bianco
Squash - Winter
	Black Futsu Chersonskaya Delicata Marina di Chioggia Queensland Blue Squash Sweet Meat
Tomato
	Amish Paste Big Rainbow Black Cherry Black From Tula Black Icicle Cherokee Purple Copia Cream Sausage Federle Flammé Orange Banana Orange Icicle Roman Candle Rutgers San Marzano San Remo Striped Roman Thessaloniki Wapsipinicon Peach
Turnip
	Purple Top White Globe
Wheat
	Federation 126 Perennial Wheat Sonoran White
david

*“We” being the Seed Library of Los Angeles   

Tis the Season To Be Seedy

It's a good time of year to reflect.  And it's excellent for the Seed Library of Los Angeles' members to reflect at this time of year because today, the 4th of December is the library's 'birthday.'  On December 4th, 2010 the first group of people met on the patio of The Learning Garden and began to formulate what everyone sees today as this marvelous seed library serving the Los Angeles area - which continues to grow monthly!  

From twenty four members present at that first meeting, we have over 800 members today, and many of those original members not only serve on our board but are some of our most able seed savers.  We are stable organization with officer elections in January.  We have more varieties of seeds we can handle and we have some wonderful success stories of saving varieties of seeds from extinction.  SLOLA has taken on some of our own breeding and countless talks have been given all over Los Angeles to audiences of 3rd graders to groups of elderly folks.  This last month we spoke at Otis College of Art and Design on saving seeds, Santa Monica College debating the efficacy of GMOs and UC Santa Barbara about saving seeds.  The message of seed saving and diversity is getting out with even non-gardeners and farmers becoming aware that our food supply is at risk because our seed supply is at risk.

Seed libraries have blossomed all over the United States - they are something local citizens can do and a way to participate in our saving our seeds from patents and the industrial model of growing food from manipulated genetics and poisons.  Seed libraries are the result of the innate knowledge that all gardening is local and diversity is what will prevent starvation, not patented seeds. 

In fact we might be a little too popular and maybe doing enough good in the world that we've pissed some big boy agriculture companies off.  Earlier this year, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (DoA) forced a newly forming library to shut down because they were not conforming to the seed laws imposed on commercial ventures; Maryland's DoA concurred and threatened to apply the same approach to any seed libraries formed in that state; Nebraska's DoA served notice on the seed libraries in that state to cease and desist.  

And Big Ag pulled their overalls up high and struck in the middle of the night.  In Sacramento, California in the last session of the year, our legislatures passed AB 2470, one of the most onerous of bills we've seen come down in modern times.  AB 2470 does a number of things, all of them bad.  I have a lot more to say about AB 2470 that will wait until after the first of the year, but today, on the fourth anniversary of SLOLA, I only want to deal with one:  the provision that makes it illegal for municipalities to make seed laws without the approval of the state's secretary of agriculture.  This law takes effect this coming January 1st, 2015.  If we want to have Los Angeles be a sanctuary for non-GMO seeds, we HAVE to have our bill passed by city council before December 31 to be grand-fathered in.

We are calling on all gardeners in Los Angeles to please come to LA City Council meeting on Tuesday, December 09, to stand in solidarity with us and have Los Angeles declared a GMO Free Zone!  Meet us in council chambers, on the third floor, in City Hall between Spring and Main Streets and Temple and First Streets - entrance on Main. If you oppose GMOs and have done nothing this year to oppose them, now is your chance to redeem and deguilt yourself!  We want, we really want, that chamber filled with supporters!   

This law will only be applied to seeds and to plants.  It will protect the plants grown in Los Angeles from genetically engineered pollen, so your corn and your beets and chard cannot be contaminated and can remain untainted. This law will not change anything in your grocery store, because we cannot legislate that.  It only applies to seeds and to the plants grown in LA.  Because there are currently no - or very little - GMO crops grown in the city, the economic hit will be slight but the economic boon could prove to be very lucrative!

With all the motions and laws that LA City Council has already passed, this law will be a substantial underpinning of the nascent urban agriculture movement in Los Angeles.  With produce that is legally protected from genetic alteration, our produce will have more cache. And every dollar spent on buying LA grown produce will stay in the community - unlike fast food, that money will contribute to LA and not to some far off corporate headquarter entity.  We build a better Los Angeles - and the people growing the food, entrepreneurs employ other Angelenos to help them and that is more money circulating in LA's economy.  

If food and gardens are important to you, please come to City Council this coming Tuesday morning, December 09 and stand in solidarity with us as the motion is introduced - if you have a garden apron, or garden shoes, wear them!  Be a gardener among gardeners pointing the way towards the new future of food in Los Angeles and the World! 

And all the blessings of the season to you and yours - and may your gardens be bountiful and delicious and forever GMO Free!

More can be found with these two blogs:
  
      http://seedfreedomla.blogspot.com/

      http://lagreenmachine.org/2014/12/04/urgent-gmo-free-la-is-here-but-only-if-you-help-us-get-it-passed-this-monday-and-tuesday-at-city-council/

david