[Scpg] FRI Jan 23 / Sustainable World Radio Interview with Lorenz Schaller of Kusa Seeds

Wed Jan 21 05:56:52 PST 2009

Friday, Jan 23 ,  9-10am Sustainable World Radio on KCSB 91.9 FM PST 
and streaming live on www.kcsb.org. Also found on 
www.sustainableworldradio.com, later in the month

Join Jill Cloutier of Sustainable World Radio for an interview  with 
Lorenz Schaller
  about Humanities Ancient Relationship with Edible Seed Crops
   The precious edible seeds of the earth - the cereal grains, 
grain-legumes, oilseeds and other precious edible seeds - have a 
history of small-scale cultivation and utilization which dates back 
more than 10,000 years.

  Lorenz Schaller's work and the mission of the Kusa Seed Society 
founded 1980 (www.ancientcerealgrains.org) is to increase humanity's 
knowledge and understanding of this very ancient relationship. 
Experience a conversion of humanity's relationship with sacred cereal 
grasses such as barley, amaranth, kamut, spelt, millet, oats, quinoa, 
and other edible seed crops from around the world. 

  Over time, his scientific knowledge merged with a deeper spiritual 
connection to the life cycles of the planet. He could see the bigger 
picture of how seed crops supplied most of the world with important, 
densely nutritious foods. These miraculous plants feed more humans 
and wildlife than any other food source

The Kusa Seed organization has operated continuously since 1980, 
regenerating rare seed, carrying-on public education work in the form 
of public lectures and color-slide presentations, and distributing 
seed and literature in accord with its mission. Lectures and 
color-slide presentations have been delivered to audiences numbering 
in the hundreds, and thousands of packets of rare seeds have been 
distributed to the public

ARTICLE FROM EDIBLE OJAI MAGAZINE SPRING 2008

Ancient Cereal Grains:
Lorenz Schaller and the Seeds of Our Past
BY CARRIE CLOUGH Edible Ojai. spring 2008

www.edibleojai.com/content/pages/articles/year2008/spring08/pdfs/ 
ancientCerealGrains.pdf

Have you ever had the opportunity to look
out onto a field of shimmering grass just
finishing its life cycle? Undoubtedly, you
have. Grasses cover more of the earth than
any other plant.

We live in Southern California, where,
in the summertime, the velvety golden
hillsides along many stretches of highway are
the work of our native grasses.
Not everyone can appreciate the brown
and yellow hue of summer dormancy, but
these colors are an important characteristic
of all grasses at the end of their life cycle.
This is the seeding stage. Without the seeds
of these mysterious and special plants, we
would have no hope of ever seeing such
landscapes again. We would also have no
hope of ever eating grains again.

The grains we know well are the grasses
humans have chosen to cultivate for thousands of years. They
are edible seed crops. Lorenz Schaller has devoted most of his
life to these seeds. This is why he founded the Kusa Seed
Research Foundation.

A longtime Ojai resident, Schaller is a remarkable steward
of his environment. Having worked as a gardener and
landscapist for many years, he developed a keen interest in the
ancient tradition of seed saving. He spent a number of his early
years researching and working in the biology department atCaltech.

Over time, his scientific knowledge merged with a deeper
spiritual connection to the life cycles of the planet. He could see
the bigger picture of how seed crops supplied most of the world
with important, densely nutritious foods. These miraculous
plants feed more humans and wildlife than any other food
source. He could see not only the important ancient tradition
of preserving heirloom grains, but he could also envision a solu-
tion to world hunger and the beginning of peaceful coexistence.
Lorenz founded Kusa in 1980. Kusa is a Sanskrit word
meaning sacred grass. The Kusa Seed Research Foundation is a
nonprofit foundation for the purpose of education and
scientific research, as well as preserving as many varieties of
heirloom cereal grains, grain-legumes and other precious edible
seeds as possible.

One of Kusa's primary concerns is the critical question of
seed ownership. For thousands of years, the rightful owner of a
seed has been the one who grew it. This paradigm has shifted
since the industrial revolution, and, more recently, with the
Green Revolution of the 1960s and the exploitation of genetic
engineering by companies like Monsanto. The intense
hybridization and genetic modification of cereal grains have
reduced our ability to evolve with nature.

Contrary to the claim of many corporate agronomists that
biotechnology is the solution to global starvation, genetic
manipulation has little to do with feeding the world's poor and
everything to do with money. If a biotech company can patent
a genetically engineered seed, it is, by law, entitled to receive the
profits from that seed, no matter where it is grown in the world.
This is how the exchange of seed becomes a business transaction
based on patent rights and a new economy of biotechnology is
engendered.

Wheat "crises" are the result of market forces selling half of all
wheat production as animal feed. It is perfectly good for human
consumption, but human consumption alone is not as profitable.

Therein lies the failing of a market-driven food supply.
Kusa began as a means of preserving an ancient tradition
that is in danger of being stripped away from us. With a highly
developed knowledge of seed storage and safekeeping and over
30 years of research, the Kusa Seed Research Foundation is a bea-
con of light for our present and future. It is the sort of work we
should all be doing, but many of us could use some instruction.
Growing grain is easier than growing vegetables. It doesn't
require very much water and doesn't need a lot of attention.
The only real challenge is a change of lifestyle. Most would
probably rather save the time and effort it takes to sheaf and
harvest grain and just go buy the grain instead. These are busy,
sleep-deprived times in which we are living.

But what if this was a community activity? I have a
wonderful book entitled Dry: Life Without Water, which
chronicles some of the driest places in the world with a series of
essays by science journalists. One of the most beautiful
depictions is of the women of a village in a mountainous region
of Morocco who have been growing and harvesting wheat for
thousands of years. It's an activity of which the women have
always been in charge, since they are ones who bake the bread
and put food on the table. It's the perfect cycle of fertility.
I love to imagine myself in a group of women, harvesting
and collecting grains of wheat or barley, chatting and laughing
about life, and having the time and the opportunity to do so.
Knowing how to begin such an event in one's modern, indus-
trialized life takes time but, fortunately, only a little bit of land.
It also takes education, which is where Kusa can provide us with
a tremendous local resource.

I asked Schaller his ultimate goal for Kusa.
"The ultimate objective of the Kusa Seed organization is to
establish and operate a Seed Learning Center, also called a Seed
Sanctuary, where the edible seed crops the organization is
conserving will be archived, regenerated and cataloged. This
headquarters property will have accommodations for 30 resi-
dential students. Students will be able to enroll for a short stay,
as a means of studying and working with the edible seed crops
first-hand. Enrollment will be tuition- and scholarship-based."
Schaller's passion for teaching was clear after I attended one
of his slide-show presentations in San Luis Obispo. This was
the first time I met him. It was a bread-baking, artisanal food-
crafting workshop organized by the Sustainable Agriculture
Resource Consortium (SARC) under the umbrella of Cal Poly.
Lorenz showed us a beautiful slide show of communities
around the world growing grain for subsistence, and doing so
sustainably.

What touched me most about his presentation was a
postcard that he had designed for Kusa. On the front of the
card were four Chinese characters that read: "Earth-Body-Not-
Two." There is no separation of our humanity from the rest of
nature. We are one and the same.

With the announcement of Norway's Global Seed Bank
receiving its first several million seeds from around the globe,
the protection of seed crops is of universal concern. Whether
any of these seeds are genetically engineered remains to be
disclosed, but with the rate of species extinction rising due to
climate change, the protection of seeds is of utmost
importance.

It's almost springtime now. After all the rain we've had, the
landscape is filled with new green shoots and budding growth.
This is the time of new beginnings. Make an effort to
commune with nature in whatever way seems intuitive to you.

Maybe that means going for a walk along one of Ojai's many
beautiful trails, or sitting outside and looking at your garden.
Maybe it means you want to start planting some seeds.
Visit the Kusa Seed Research Foundation website at
www.ancientcerealgrains.org.

Lorenz Schaller is a remarkable writer and has written
much informative literature about grains. For more informa-
tion about the Seed Sanctuary, visit the Seed and Literature
catalog on the website and click on "Church of Grain."
Carrie Clough is a native of Santa Barbara who has recently
moved to Santa Barbara. She is a certified nutritional chef and has her own
personal chef business, MANZANITA, specializing in nutritious
cuisine.With a great love of native plants and seasonal produce, she
seeks to meld the two worlds of ecology and gastronomy into one
beautiful, edible tapestry. Visit www.manzanitachef.com.
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