Hi everyone, apologies I haven’t been very active within this community for a while. I’m Holly, I am a vegetable and seed grower based in the UK, and I also work for the Gaia Foundation Seed Sovereignty programme. I just wanted to share some details about a project I’m facilitating here in the UK and Ireland this year, it’s a crowd breeding project focusing on diverse populations - partly inspired by all of the amazing work of the Going to Seed community! I’m working with 18 other growers/farmers to curate and grow 3 different populations. We’ve chosen Broad (fava) beans, Kale and Summer Squash as our crops, selected the varieties that will form our initial cross, and I’ve pooled and distributed seed to everyone for the coming season. We’re all growing the same mix, so it’ll be exciting to see what works well in the different areas of the UK. The plan is to repool most of the seed at the end of the season and redistribute for next year, keeping some of the seed back for more regional populations. Excited to be on this journey with a community of super enthusiastic farmers, @Joseph_Lofthouse met with our group on zoom recently and they were all so inspired to hear of the possibilities that come with adaptive farming.
In other news, I am visiting the Pacific North West US this summer on a Churchill Fellowship visiting folks involved in seed production, particularly those working collaboratively and with diversity in mind to bring resilience. I’ll be travelling in Oregon, WA and up into B.C, if anyone has recommendations of people growing diverse populations that I could potentially visit, I’d love to hear!
