Food Sovereignty
As grassroots as it gets

by Nancy Redfeather

Agriculture begins and ends with seed, which evolved through countless generations of plant breeders, farmers, and gardeners selecting the best qualities and passing them on. I mused on that thought this morning as I cleaned my pea seed. According to the definitive Seed Savers Exchange Garden Seed Inventory, The "Tall Telephone" was developed for home and market gardens in 1878 by a Mr. Alderman. For the past 130 years, it has been growing in both temperate and tropical gardens. This type of hardiness and diversity is rarely seen today in the modern hybrid seed. Mr. Alderman, bless his heart, didn't need a patent, and so "Tall Telephone" remains in the "commons."
Similarly, the University of Hawai'i deserves the "Golden Fruit Award" for its work on the Kaimana lychee, an unpatented lychee that is by far the best for home or commercial orchard production. UH sought a lychee with a smaller "chicken tongue" seed on an annual bearing tree. They planted out thousands of seeds and selected and selected until they found the perfect one. Although this method of breeding and selection seems to be a dying art, it creates authentic agricultural products that enhance food production and food security for Hawai'i's communities.
Kona can grow amazingly hardy viable seed. Organic or conventional seed production is a niche crop that returns high value for the relatively small area needed for production. While not simple, the potential for farmers and gardeners to grow tropical vegetable, herb, or flower seed for market is there, considering there is only one seed grower for those varieties in Hawai'i: UH Manoa.
Hawai'i is typical of the trend occurring in home and market seed production today. Of the nearly 5,000 non-hybrid (open-pollinated) vegetable seed varieties that were offered in 1984 in catalogs across the US, 88 percent of the varieties had been dropped by 1998. John Jeavons, director of the Grow Biointensive mini-farming program, estimates that we have lost 95 percent of all vegetable varieties grown in the US in 1900. While new varieties continue to be developed by seed breeders, open pollinated varieties available to the home or market gardener continue to dwindle in favor of hybrids and GMO seed, which cannot be saved or reproduced "true to type."

Eia ke ano mua, eia ke ano eope.
(The seed is first, the seed is last)

"Open-pollinated" seed can be selected, saved, and replanted for generations. This is one of the "foundations" of sustainable agriculture for the future and one that is rapidly being replaced.
According to a recent report by the ETC group in Canada, buyouts and consolidations of the world vegetable and grain seed industry continue at a dizzying rate. Monsanto's latest purchase of Burpee Seed (largest US producer of home garden seed), Seminis (world's largest vegetable seed producer), and Delta & Pine Land (world's largest cotton seed producer and developer of the "terminator technology"), give the gene giant unprecedented status in the world of seed. Now, a mere handful of transnational corporations, the world's largest pesticide and chemical companies, are in control of much of the world's seed. The top three companies are the high stakes players in GMO (genetically modified organism) seed research and development in the Hawaiian Islands.
Monsanto, Dupont (Pioneer Hi-Bred), and Syngenta conduct experimental GMO field trials and grow out "parent seed lines" on Maui, Oahu, Molokai, and Kauai. Some of our state's best farmland is currently devoted to GMO field trials and production, at a time when even the legislature is looking to a more secure and sustainable source of food and energy production for the state. Only Hawai'i Island is GMO free (except for UH Manoa's GMO Rainbow papaya).
When ownership of seed is tightly held by a few corporations, the world's food supply becomes vulnerable to the whim of market maneuvers. Corporate boards have obligations to their shareholders, not to local food security.
In contrast, Santa Fe County, New Mexico, has adopted a Resolution in Support of a "Declaration of Seed Sovereignty." It provides guidelines for seed saving and seed development within the county, and affirm farmers "rights" to develop and preserve farm-saved seed free from "genetic contamination."
The annual Hawai'i Island Seed Exchange is a way for farmers and gardeners island-wide to share saved seed, cuttings, roots, hulis, and plants of food crops that do well in this environment. This year Dr. Elizabeth Tam, Chair of UH School of Medicine, will speak on "What's in Our Air?" along with our expert farmer panel who will connect air and agriculture. Ken Love and the Tropical Fruit Growers will display and host a tasting, and speak about "Growing Tropical Fruit From Seed." Alvin Yoshinaga, Seed Ecologist at UH Manoa, will speak on "Home Seed Saving: The Basics." Kumu Keala Ching will once again guide our opening ceremony that will begin at 8:30 a.m.
Please bring an "offering" of fruits or vegetables from your garden to share following the ceremony. If you are a newcomer to gardening, please come anyway. We invite the entire community to join us for a "Seed Festival" to promote biodiversity, local food security, and home food production for all!

Hawai'i Island
Seed Exchange
Saturday, June 16
8 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Info: 323-3318
Nancy Redfeather is a teacher and gardener in Kona and Coordinator of the Hawai'i Island Seed Exchange. She and her husband Gerry Herbert are developing a 1.2 acre organic/sustainable experimental and educational mini-farm in Honalo.

Top of Page