
Saving Our Seeds: Protecting the Future of Our Food
Since the start of human agricultural practices, seeds have been traditionally saved and shared between farmers – used and passed down from one season to the next.
Since the start of human agricultural practices, seeds have been traditionally saved and shared between farmers – used and passed down from one season to the next.
One of the first things Grant and Dawn did was change the monoculture cash crop, or cover crop into a highly complex, diverse cover crop of which immediately became a game changer for them.
Our pesticide and insecticide use is not only hurting our bodies, but it is negatively impacting our food supply by killing our pollinators. In a recent report, the United Nations warned that 40% of the world’s pollinators are at risk of extinction.
The transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural-based living was gradual, but posed revolutionary ecological and cultural transformations as centuries have passed. In the United States particularly, increased commercialized farming has simplified ecosystems, embraced monocropping and become dependent on chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
At this point in history, the agricultural world is no stranger to genetic modification. With this technology, researchers have created seedless watermelon, gluten-free wheat and apples that don’t turn brown with age. This is done through breeding out unwanted traits of an organism (i.e seeds or spots).
Soil is the most basic foundation of our food security. Recent scientific assessments have found that one third of the globe’s land is significantly degraded due to numerous factors such as erosion, salinization, compaction, acidification and not least of all, chemical pollution.