Farmers Saving Seeds: Growing the Future of a Smallholder Economy

Lead photo/ Munch, photography/ Hong Cui-ping

Life is not a slave to money and capital; people are not slaves to power. --Vandana Shiva

In October, the "Non-GMO Group," jointly formed by the Homemakers United Foundation, the Homemakers United Cooperative, Green Formosa Front and the Seed Laboratory of the Department of Agronomy at National Taiwan University, held a promotional event, the "Seed Autonomy and Germplasm Conservation Workshop," at the Taitung District Farmers' Association. It served as an extension of their ongoing non-GMO farming area movement and, at the same time, as an outpost for safeguarding food security.

That day, the participants included farmers trying to transition to organic farming, people living a half-farming, half-X life, and, even more numerous, members who had already begun organic farming as well as farmers practicing the Shu Ming natural farming method.

The workshop began with Mr. Wu Dong-jie of the Green Formosa Front speaking about the importance of germplasm conservation and seed autonomy, and through the documentary "The Legend of Cow Dung" helped participants understand how the WTO, patents and genetically modified crops affect agriculture and farmers. Next, Taitung farmers shared their own experiences of saving seeds.

Wu Dong-jie of the Green Formosa Front mentioned that human knowledge and technology are often monopolized to form new classes. The preservation of germplasm not only has social significance, preparing for the food security crisis caused by climate change and preventing seeds vital to survival from becoming an improper means for a minority to monopolize for maximum profit; it also carries the cultural meaning of continuing the previous generation's memory of the taste of food.

Roger, owner of Roger Farm, pointed out that not every crop makes it easy to obtain seeds that have already grown for many years and possess market competitiveness. The market's acceptance of a crop determines the survival of smallholders. Usually, seeds with high market acceptance cannot be obtained by smallholders themselves and can only be acquired by purchase. Roger's way of overcoming this dilemma is to observe and cultivate purchased seeds for many years and to exchange experience and seeds with fellow farmers, thereby stabilizing the quality and characteristics of the seeds.

Yang Kun-cheng, owner of Nong Ziran Natural Farm, also suggested that seed saving must be carried out under natural conditions, because highly energy-intensive seed-saving methods are very likely to yield seeds that depend heavily on fertilizers and pesticides. If we hope to find seeds with strong vitality that require no additional inputs, then we should obtain them in a natural environment.

Lin Yi-long, owner of Xiayun Natural Farm, shared that the vegetable seeds he used when he first started growing were obtained from Datunxi Natural Farming Educational Farm, the earliest promoter of Shu Ming natural farming in Taiwan, China. In addition, he also obtained seeds that neighboring elderly farmers had preserved for more than twenty years.

Lin Yi-long said that the crops grown from these seeds, cultivated without fertilizer for decades, were all healthy and delicious. He said that if you want to find the best seeds, go to the old farmers. However, the old farmers are gradually passing away, so we also need to speed up our "treasure hunting" to carry on the wisdom and painstaking efforts of the old farmers over decades. Furthermore, once seeds are obtained, how to avoid the narrowing of genetic diversity is also a major challenge for farmers. Lin Yi-long believes that seeds must be constantly exchanged with others to avoid this problem more effectively.

Xu Lan-xiang, owner of Dawn Flower House, which makes naturally brewed vinegar, further proposed the idea of a seed bank, letting farmers serve on the front line of ecological conservation, because agriculture should be systematic. Many animals also bear the responsibility of preserving seeds and catalyzing them. Therefore, in an agricultural system, animals and plants coexist, and the extinction of one species is accompanied by the elimination of another.

Xu Lan-xiang believes that rather than spending a large amount of national resources to establish a germplasm bank whose seed germination rate may be only 5%, it would be better to "hide the wealth" in every farmer's home, letting each farmer preserve and sow seeds according to the crops' solar terms. Only then will this first-hand data from God be protected. At the same time, by promoting the exchange and preservation of seeds among farmers, farmers can become one of the tens of thousands of shareholder members of this seed bank, preventing seeds vital to everyone's survival from being monopolized by a minority.

Crop varieties are a key factor determining crop harvests. When farmers gradually lose the habit of cultivating healthy, delicious, vigorous seeds suited to their local area, they are also gradually losing the autonomy of their farming methods and the ability to control their crop harvests. Farmers saving seeds for their own use not only allows them to grow delicious crops in a way closer to nature and with lower energy consumption; seed preservation also serves to connect and continue the wisdom and memories between generations.

In the sharing by Taitung farmers, the dilemmas faced by farmers saving seeds include not only seeds rapidly disappearing along with the passing of old farmers, but also the potential threat of narrowing genetic diversity and the problem of seed preservation. In addition, the destruction and imbalance of ecosystems also plant hidden worries for germplasm conservation.

The way to respond to these seed-saving dilemmas may be just like these years, when new immigrants and returning natives have regathered in Taitung, surrounded by mountains and sea and home to diverse ethnic groups. They have, without prior arrangement, through continuous farming, grown a smallholder economy different from an oligopolistic economy, trying through bodily practice to walk out a good life that is small in scale and decentralized, diverse and coexisting, mutually beneficial and exchanging, and able to coexist and prosper together with the land.