Within our annual crops, seed saving is quite likely the defining element of agriculture, yet most farms purchase all of their seed in from the outside, often from abstract foreign locales. Through their work with Siskiyou Seeds and the Seed Academy training, Stacey and Don have forged many connections towards fostering community seed systems, which include plant breeding, trialing, varietal adaptation, field days, education, outreach, seed growing, and distribution. The work of creating new regenerative seed systems involves helping people to engage with organic/biodynamic seed sourcing in compelling, encouraging ways as regulatory measures have fallen short. There exists tremendous opportunity to help farmers close the loop with regards to incorporating on-farm seed saving and selection with helps to achieve multiple goals including greater farm resilience, increased climate and pest adaptation, and expression of the farm individuality to the outer world, which can also become a strong marketing asset. This workshop will explore the myriad of ways in which seed saving touches so many aspects of agrarian cuture and can be a powerful vehicle to proliferate socio-cultural change and the betterment of humanity.
