[Scpg] Sowing Revolution: Seed Libraries Offer Hope for Freedom of Food

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

Sowing Revolution: Seed Libraries Offer Hope for Freedom of Food
By ST Frequency, Cross-posted from Reality Sandwich
http://climate-connections.org/2012/04/25/sowing-revolution-seed-libraries-offer-hope-for-freedom-of-food/

NOTE: This article appeared a few months ago, but we repost it because 
it tells the beautiful story of the evolution of seed libraries across 
the U.S., from a decade ago to the present. This weekend’s Occupy the 
Farm action inspired us to look at the history of the Gill Tract in 
Berkeley — the last and best piece of farmland in the area. Local lore 
tells us that the first seed library in Berkeley began in 1999, when 
seeds from the Gill Tract had to be saved due to the takeover by 
Novartis of research at the UC Berkeley-owned plot. That moment led to a 
blossoming of seed libraries across the U.S. — and the Occupy moment 
just might allow some of those seeds, ten seed-generations later, to 
come back home. – Jeff Conant, for GJEP

The seed revolution began one sunny afternoon on a neatly mowed lawn at 
the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. For an historic moment, it wasn’t much to 
gawk at: a circle of about a dozen seedsmen and seedswomen sitting 
cross-legged in the grass, laying out the blueprint for an agricultural 
uprising.The gathering took place in the midst of the National Heirloom 
Exposition, a three-day trade show for heirloom foods held last 
September in Santa Rosa, California. Weeks earlier a call had gone out 
on Facebook for an informal meeting among a coterie of folks in various 
stages of visioning, building, and running seed libraries. Following the 
model of lending libraries for books, a seed library works pretty much 
as you’d imagine. Seeds are “checked out” with the intention to plant 
them in a garden, enjoy the fresh food, and keep a couple of plants in 
the ground to go to seed. The saved seed is then “returned” to the 
library—ideally, in more abundance than what was borrowed. Though not 
altogether new, the concept had recently sprouted legs and was spreading 
like bindweed across the country.
Seated in the circle were some of the key figures in the emerging seed 
library movement, with representatives from both U.S. coasts: Ken 
Greene, co-founder of the Hudson Valley Seed Library in upstate New 
York; David King, founder and chairman of the Seed Library of Los 
Angeles; and Rebecca Newburn, creator of the Richmond Grows Seed Lending 
Library in California’s East Bay. It was clear to all assembled that 
they were onto something big. TheNew York Times had run a feature on 
seed libraries months earlier, and the buzz was continuing to build. The 
time had come to solidify the ranks. In a unanimous vote, the group 
moved to form a national association of seed libraries—a unifying body 
to advance the growing movement.

The backdrop for this radical convergence was fitting. Billed as “the 
World’s Pure Food Fair,” the National Heirloom Expo was at its essence a 
show of solidarity for heritage foods against the corporate-agricultural 
machine. The gala event played host to over 10,000 people browsing the 
crop-laden exhibit halls: a diverse mix of CSA farmers and hobby 
gardeners, die-hard foodies and organic chefs, green activists and 
apocalyptic “preppers.” On the surface the event was a celebration of 
biodiversity, but the political undercurrent was clear with prominent 
GMO critic Jeffrey Smith and anti-globalization activist Vandana Shiva 
among the weekend’s keynote speakers. Between the garden-chic displays 
of fairytale pumpkins and tiger-striped tomatoes, something far more 
subversive was spreading its roots.

In other words, it was the ideal gathering grounds to rally awareness 
around that vital, but often overlooked, keystone of the sustainability 
discussion—the seeds. The time is ripe for this awakening. Biodiversity 
among our food crops has plummeted over the past fifty years following 
the meteoric rise of industrial agriculture. Only 4% of the commercial 
vegetable varieties being grown in 1903 are still in cultivation today. 
In their place, vast fields of genetically modified corn, canola, cotton 
and soy now blanket the world’s farmlands. Multinational agribusiness 
corporations like Monsanto and DuPont realized early on that control 
over the seeds was the key to global domination of food supplies. Over 
the past two decades these industrial giants have aggressively swallowed 
up dozens of smaller seed companies in a cutthroat race for market 
supremacy. According to the latest figures from the ETC Group, a 
sustainable agriculture think tank, Monsanto sits at the top of the pile 
raking in 27 percent of total seed sales worldwide.

The current paradigm of food—centrally controlled by profiteering 
corporations and besieged by the life-destroying government policies 
that support them—stands in stark contrast to the sovereign agriculture 
of our ancestors. Seed saving is an ancient tradition with a lineage 
stretching back 12,000 years. But in less than a century’s time, this 
once fundamental part of the human experience has largely disappeared. 
The transition from rural agrarianism to urbanization has led to 
increasingly fewer people growing food and interacting with seeds. When 
the industrial storm of the “Green Revolution” gave rise to 
mammoth-scale monoculture farms, saving one’s own seed for replanting 
became far too cumbersome a prospect—not to mention, genetically 
undesirable and contractually illegal with the advent of hybrids and 
gene patenting. In just a few generations, both the time-honored 
knowledge of seed saving and many irreplaceable seeds are nearing 
extinction.
It is no small matter, then, that we are witnessing a resurgence of 
interest in heirloom crops. A consciousness shift is taking place around 
the politics of food in the modern world. People are waking up to the 
battle raging over our dinner plates and realizing that victory hinges 
upon who controls the tiny seeds that are the source of all sustenance. 
To restore our freedom over food, it is essential that every community 
have access to a collectively owned treasure chest of seeds. Seed 
libraries represent our best hope for reclaiming this independence. As 
an added benefit, they boost regional biodiversity and resiliency by 
encouraging the cultivation of new crop varieties adapted to local 
growing conditions. With global temperatures on the rise and financial 
markets plummeting, a robust network of community foodsheds to replace 
the shaky monolith of industrial agriculture has become an imperative 
for human survival.

The seed library story begins, appropriately, with a rebellion. In late 
November 1999, thousands of anti-globalization activists descended on 
Seattle to protest a meeting of the World Trade Organization. The 
massive demonstrations shut down the city for days. Sascha DuBrul, a 
24-year-old activist and New York native living in Berkeley, took part 
in the protests and returned to California charged with excitement. “It 
was a really vibrant time,” he recalls. “Here in the Bay Area, there 
were all these amazing projects starting up that are still around.”

Seeds were DuBrul’s newly discovered passion. While interning at a CSA 
farm in British Colombia the previous year, he became fascinated by the 
invigorating genetic relationships that arose when domestic crops 
intermingled with their wild relatives. Diversity was the key to the 
health of a community, he realized, be it plant or human. This idea had 
great relevance to urban spaces where people live in close quarters but 
thrive on cultural differences. “I had this vision of articulating the 
relationship between biological and cultural diversity, and bringing 
that idea to kids in the city,” says DuBrul.

That opportunity soon came following a Faustian deal between the 
University of California at Berkeley and the Swiss agribusiness giant 
Novartis. One of the first decrees under the alliance was for the 
eviction of an on-campus CSA farm to make way for trials of genetically 
modified corn. “There were all these seeds left over in a cabinet and 
nothing was going on,” recalls DuBrul. “So I thought, ‘Hey, why don’t we 
start a seed library?’ We could have a collection of seeds that people 
can take out, and then have regular seed saving workshops where 
gardeners can come and learn the basic techniques.” He started 
brainstorming with his friend Christopher Shein, who had been running 
the Berkeley campus CSA. Their vision quickly blossomed into the first 
seed lending library: the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library, or BASIL.

DuBrul counts an unlikely pair of inspirations behind the BASIL project: 
Gary Paul Nabhan, co-founder of Native Seeds/SEARCH and father of the 
local food movement, and the Black Panthers. “Reading [Nabhan's] book 
Enduring Seeds rocked my world,” he says, “and the Panthers had this 
history of community-controlled movements where people took over their 
communities for their own.” Over the next nine months BASIL flourished 
out of the nonprofit Ecology Center as a grassroots hub for seed saving 
and self-reliance in the Berkeley community. But DuBrul, who suffers 
from bi-polar disorder, found himself unable to see the project through. 
Through the commendable efforts of Shein and fellow BASIL stalwart Terri 
Compost, the pioneering seed library was kept alive as an annual seed 
swap while DuBrul moved on to other ventures.

Years later, in 2003, DuBrul was working on another small farm, this 
time in upstate New York. During a trip to the local Gardiner Public 
Library, he met a young librarian named Ken Greene. The two had a common 
interest in agriculture, and DuBrul told his new friend about BASIL. The 
connection set Greene’s mind running. “What does loss of genetic 
diversity mean?” he mused. “For me, there were two stories that were 
being lost: the genetic story told from the seeds we grow and save, and 
the cultural story that goes along with them.” There was a profound 
connection between the seemingly disparate worlds of books and seeds, he 
realized. Both represent incredible repositories of information, 
cultural wealth, and history. Much like books went out of print and 
disappeared from circulation, genetic diversity among seeds was rapidly 
fading away as gardeners and farmers stopped seeking out and cultivating 
unique varieties. The solution was suddenly obvious. Greene proposed to 
his director, an avid gardener herself, his idea of adding seeds to the 
branch’s catalog. She assented, and a seed library inside a public 
library was born.

The Gardiner seed library met with enthusiasm from the community. Before 
long, Greene was teaching seed saving classes to encourage more 
participation. For five years the project grew steadily under his 
direction. But the small town librarian was imagining bigger things. 
He’d long dreamed of becoming a farmer, and his intensive relationship 
with seeds had opened up some new ideas.

In 2008 he uprooted his seed project from the Gardiner library and set 
up shop on two acres of farmland in Accord, N.Y. Called theHudson Valley 
Seed Library, the new venture is different in some notable ways. For 
starters, the library is organized and run online, opening it up to a 
much broader community of users. This strategy appears to have real 
merit; within its first year of operation, membership swelled from 60 to 
500 people. Anyone can buy seed off the website, but for an annual fee 
of $25 members receive ten free seed packs and gain access to an 
expanded “Library” collection. “If we were gong to commit ourselves to 
running the library full time, we had to come up with a way to make it 
financially sustainable,” says Greene about the paid membership structure.

Together with his partner Doug Muller, Greene personally grows a portion 
of the seed he offers. Much of the remaining stock is sourced from a 
network of small, conscientious farms growing under the same seasonal 
conditions. Having a dependable source of fresh seed is important for 
the operation; returns to the library are not required, and getting 
people to follow through on returning seed has been a challenge. Greene 
identifies this as part of a cultural mindset he is working to change. 
As a new incentive program, library members who return seed will receive 
a discount on their next year’s membership fee. “A lot of people are 
just more comfortable buying something every year,” he says. “We’re 
trying to encourage them to take the responsibility of being a producer.”

As the Hudson Valley operation ramps up, another front in the seed 
revolution is brewing on the opposite coast. The Richmond Grows Seed 
Lending Library opened for business in the spring of 2010 inside the 
main branch of the Richmond Public Library in California’s East Bay. 
Colorful signs hanging prominently above a repurposed card catalog 
cabinet instruct users in the process of checking out seeds from drawers 
labeled “Super Easy,” “Easy,” and “Difficult.” Beans, peas and peppers 
rank among the beginner’s veggies, while out-crossing crops like corn 
and squash are reserved for more advanced seed savers.

Richmond Grows is the brainchild of Rebecca Newburn, a middle school 
science-teacher-turned-community-activist who has taken up the mantle 
for local seed sovereignty. While her public library model has a clear 
precedent in Ken Greene’s Gardiner project years prior, Newburn came up 
with the concept independently. And the coincidental connections don’t 
stop there. The germ of the idea, in both cases, has ties to the same 
inspirational source: Sascha DuBrul. After spending time volunteering at 
DuBrul’s now 12-year-old (and still kicking) BASIL organization, Newburn 
started a community seed project of her own. “I really love the work 
they are doing [at BASIL] and wanted to make it more accessible to the 
general public,” she explains. “So I created a seed library in my local 
public library.”

In many ways, hosting a community seed reserve inside a pubic library is 
a match made in heaven. Maintaining any sizeable collection of seeds is 
first and foremost a challenge in organization. Varieties must be kept 
separate and neatly cataloged, with all relevant data such as harvest 
dates accurately recorded. This type of work—organizing complex 
collections of information—is, of course, what libraries do best. 
Furthermore, the long-standing legitimacy of the library as an American 
institution could play a crucial role in the safekeeping of these 
collections. It could very well come to pass that lawmakers doing the 
bidding of Big Agriculture decide to crack down on these open-source 
community seed vaults. Imagine the scandal and outrage that would ensue 
if the USDA ran a campaign raiding public libraries to confiscate their 
seditious seeds.

For libraries across the country facing steep declines in users, adding 
a seed library to their services makes a lot of sense to attract new 
visitors. With the right vision, these increasingly marginalized public 
spaces can be transformed into vibrant community hubs for sustainability 
and self-reliance. The Richmond Grows Seed Lending Library is a shining 
example of this vision bearing fruit. In addition to hosting seed saving 
workshops and events, the group has set up a demonstration garden on the 
library grounds where people can stroll through and watch seed 
harvesting in action.


The Richmond Grows Seed Lending Library and its founder, Rebecca Newburn.
Following the success of Richmond Grows, more and more libraries are 
beginning to crop up. “The idea is spreading fungally,” says Newburn. 
“There are about thirty other libraries that we’ve heard of that are in 
progress. Communities want to have access to healthy, locally grown and 
adapted seeds.” So far, many newly established seed libraries are 
concentrated in California, but the word is getting out. An article in 
the April 2011 issue of the trade magazineAmerican Libraries heralded 
the rise of seed libraries as a promising trend in the industry. To help 
nurture this blooming phenomenon, Richmond Grows has added a “Create a 
Library” page on their website with step-by-step instructions for 
getting started, alongside a comprehensive kit of downloadable signage, 
labels, and brochures.

While the public library is an ideal home for a local seed collection, 
it isn’t the only game in town. Ken Greene’s Hudson Valley project 
started out among the bookshelves but eventually morphed into a very 
different model: a paid membership service hosted online. Likewise, the 
Seed Library of Los Angeles, or SLoLA, which opened last year at Venice 
High School’s nonprofit Learning Garden, accepts new lifetime members 
for a nominal fee of $10. In Greene’s view, there is no “one way” to run 
a community seed project. Just as local library branches are tailored to 
best serve their communities, seed libraries are taking on their own 
uniquely adapted designs. “That’s one of the most exciting things about 
what’s happening with local seeds right now,” observes Greene. “Everyone 
can do it differently.”

Regardless of its structure, the arrival of each new seed library 
represents a new, radically decentralized approach to food security. 
Those at the vanguard of the movement recognize the revolutionary 
importance in their work. “No one is demanding any transparency or 
accountability from the big seed companies,” says Greene. “More and 
more, the only way we will have any kind of seed sovereignty is by 
saving our own seeds and sharing them.” Newburn agrees, pointing to the 
spread of seed libraries as the key to sustainability in an uncertain 
future: “We’re seeing the rebirth of seed saving as an essential part of 
home gardening and local resilience. My vision is that more and more 
communities will have seed libraries and systems for sharing locally 
grown seeds.”

People everywhere are beginning to recognize the crucial link between 
humanity, the crops that sustain us, and their embattled seeds. We are 
on the cusp of a seed saving renaissance—and not a moment too soon. A 
recent report in the LA Times revealed that Monsanto has set its sights 
on a new target market: the garden vegetable seed industry. Employing 
intensive breeding technologies, Monsanto aims to concoct newfangled 
veggies with bizarre traits they imagine consumers will eagerly devour. 
Shoppers will be able to load up on heads of cholesterol-lowering 
broccoli, quicker-ripening melons, and onions that cause less 
eye-watering when sliced. Steve Peters, former head of production at 
Seeds of Change, summed this disturbing news up best: “Monsanto wants to 
take the tears out of onions. What’s wrong with tears?“

It seems a decisive battle for seed supremacy may be sprouting. 
Thankfully, sustainable farmers and gardeners are rallying. Like-minded 
groups across the country are setting up new seed libraries and 
exchanges. A tight-knit network of seed activists is coming together as 
the movement matures and expands. Last June I began working at Native 
Seeds/SEARCH, a 29-year-old nonprofit seed bank and conservation center 
in Tucson, Arizona. Recognizing a void in educational opportunities for 
this new paradigm of seed activism, we have developed a six-day 
intensive seed-training program known as Seed School. In a little over a 
year, Seed School has sent more than 100 graduates into the world armed 
with the knowledge and inspiration to advance the local seed movement. 
Many of the movers and shakers in the seed library scene, including 
Rebecca Newburn of Richmond Grows and SLoLA founder David King, are Seed 
School graduates. Others have gone on to start their own small 
bioregional seed companies, local seed banks, and innovative grassroots 
seed projects. In light of the challenges we face, this is heartening stuff.

The ultimate success of the seed diversity movement rests in the 
reeducation and involvement of the population at large. As Ken Greene 
observes, so many of us are in the habit of buying seeds. Here in 
Tucson, our plan is simple: we are going to make our city “Seed Town.” 
With five seed libraries just opened up in branches of our Pima County 
Library System (thanks to librarian and Seed School graduate Justine 
Hernandez) and one of the world’s best regional seed banks at Native 
Seeds/SEARCH, Tucson is on track to build the seed diversity necessary 
for a truly sustainable and self-reliant food system. When members of 
the urban and organic agriculture movements awaken in a few years and 
realize they are supporting industrially produced, corporate-owned 
seeds, it is our hope they will look to Tucson as a model for local seed 
sovereignty.

The seed revolution is underway as communities do what comes 
naturally—grow food, save seeds, and share the harvest. Victory never 
tasted so good.