Everything Under The Sun: Maintaining Food Crop Diversity

One of Cleveland Seed Bank's publications.

It all started with a trip to India in 2010 by Chris Kennedy, a school teacher, and his wife, Marilyn McHugh, a biologist. They met Dr. Vandana Shiva, who was helping local farmers learn organic techniques through her organization, Navdanya. That organization had established more than 110 seed banks throughout India.

At the same time, the couple's home city of Cleveland was experiencing a growth of urban farms and markets, feeding a local food movement. With the idea of seed banks, like the ones in India, in mind, this twosome traveled to the sites of several seed bank initiatives to learn from them.

By 2013, the CLEVELAND SEED BANK became a reality, after both Marilyn and Chris developed a collaborative arrangement with the Cleveland Public Library to place seed libraries in five library branches. These branches function as in-person venues for seed exchanges.

At the time, Christopher said, "[We] seek to empower at least 100 individuals to join our network, learn seed saving techniques, and participate by saving their own seeds and accessing the local varieties saved by others." That led to a search for a way for their website to allow users to trade seeds with each other.

At the time, there was no developed online engine to allow the development of a members area where participants could trade or share their seeds. However, the seed bank had as a member a local hacktivist, Meitar Moskovitz, who was already a team member. He wrote the code that developed an open-source WordPress plug-in that provided the desired functionality. That plug-in is now available in three different languages. Today, the seed bank has over 200 members and has more than 700 seeds posted for exchange.

Why go through all of this to maintain a supply of seeds? With the proliferation of factory farms, much biodiversity has been lost. When food banks are established and utilized by smaller growers, it enhances genetic variability. That provides a certain amount of safety when a disease attacks crops with a certain genetic make-up, since seeds that are just a bit different genetically could survive an onslaught by that same disease. In essence, it makes crops more vigorous and less vulnerable.

Workshop held last month on seed saving.

Although this isn't a pitch for more seed banks, that really isn't a bad idea. The more seed banks that are developed, the more biodiversity is preserved. That keeps food crops more secure and vigorous. And that doesn't even include the fact that fresh fruits and vegetables are needed for good nutrition and help fill in urban areas which have become food deserts. So, support your local food bank. If you have time and energy and your area lacks one, by all means, use your talents to develop one. That's all win-win!