Seed Cluster Pilot project
By September 2010 Nanaimo BC and Guelph Ontario will each be home to Canada's first public 'seed bank' facility and Seed 'Cluster'. By the end of 2011 we hope to have 2 'Clusters' per province coast to coast.
We will through this program re create a grassroots based agriculture system similar to that in Canada 100 years ago with local farmers trialing seed and collaborating with regional, provincial and federal scientists and agronomists.
The purpose of this project is to build a food system structure from the local level up that includes the education of communities about designing community seed collections.
Local ‘Clusters’ of experienced trained people need to be identified, trained and mobilized in maintaining conservation of native and agricultural crop varieties adapted to the local growing region. Seed storage facilities need to be created to house the seed.
These seed banks can contain emergency preparedness seed stocks for a community as well as a working collection of seed to be used annually by growers.
We need to fund farmers to bulk up quantities of open pollinated basic food crops for purchase by the Clusters. Farmers should not be expected to finance production of food as well as producing the seed for next year's crops.
We need to distribute the seed to Seed Clusters and train people to manage local seed collections. This will form a part of a ‘cluster’ that each local area will form to continue to research, identify varieties and bulk up seed.
The project allows interface with university researchers who are interested in mapping variety adaptation to land; GIS; geography, environment and agronomy interactions; organic agriculture to reduce CO2 emissions; organic plant breeders, plant and disease pathologists and entomologists and people interested in enhancing the nutritional aspects of food crops. It’s a wonderful local opportunity for students to experience agriculture and to train with experts who are in the community.
Seed varieties will adapt in each region. It’s important that the local ‘cluster’ identify curators and seed guardians for each variety. These growers will provide seed to the medium and long tern (Saskatoon seed bank) seed banks. They will also ensure that stocks of all community seed plants are maintained in a diversity of gardens and fields to ensure the survival of the core lines.
Networking with international organizations that are involved in global action strategies to conserve biodiversity of both agricultural crops and native plants will ensure that Canada is practicing ‘benefit sharing’ of information and seed.
Public seed for people
Instead of locking away seed in a vault in a mountain we are creating a virtual gene bank of seed and knowledge for all people. Everyone will have access to a key to this database not just a few select corporations. We feel that the genetic resources of seed belong to people, not corporations.
We know that a growing number of people want to use 'heritage' varieties of wheat like 'Red Fife' wheat or 'emmer'. But not all varieties grow well in all regions.
What if we could help people find varieties of crops that have a very good chance of THRIVING not just surviving in their field or garden?
People have been experimenting with different varieties for centuries. What if we could integrate the historic crop information with the climate information and soil type when the data was collected?
Nanaimo Pilot coordinator: Sharon Rempel (250)-585-6776 (TGIBC)
Guelph Pilot coordinator Bob Wildfong (519)-505-7814 Seeds of Diversity Canada (SoDC)