"During the period from 1984-1987, 54 of the 230 mail-order seed companies in the United States and Canada went out of business. The majority were smaller companies that had been rich sources of unique varieties. The loss of those 54 companies resulted in 943 non-hybrid varieties (19%) becoming unavailable. The collections being dropped, which sometimes represent the life's work of several generations of seedsmen, are often well adapted to specific regional climates and resistant to local diseases and pests. Far from being obsolete or inferior, these may well be the best home garden varieties ever developed. It is entirely possible that half of the non-hybrid varieties still available from seed companies could be lost during the next decade...
Most of today's breeding programs produce hybrid varieties for commercial growers, often designed to facilitate mechanical harvesting and long distance shipping. Commercial hybrids exhibit highly uniform characteristics, often ripening almost simultaneously. Hybrid uniformity is essential for commercial growers who must mechanically harvest huge fields with a single pass, but is often poorly suited for the home gardeners who wish to spread canning chores and fresh produce over the longest possible harvest season. Many commercial varieties rely on tough skins and solid flesh to withstand mechanical picking and cross-country shipping. Gardeners, on the other hand, are primarily concerned with tenderness and outstanding flavor.
The old varieties are threatened today, not because of any defeciencies, but because they are not suitable for factory farmers and the food processing industry. As long as food crops are being bred for machines and large commercial growers, the needs of the home gardener will be of marginal importance. The old varieties will survive and flourish only if they continue to be grown by backyard gardeners and sold by local farmers markets, organic food co-ops and CSAs." --Suzanne Ashworth, Seed to Seed
2 comments:
What a great thing to preserve the old seed lines. It's a lot like preserving the living traditions of the Church.
I hope our new place has room for a garden...
My thoughts exactly. I think the parallels run deep actually. Just as there are organically developed differences in the same liturgy from culture to culture, there are developed differences in the same varieties of seed as they are grown over time in differing regions. The fact that locally developed strains of old seed lines are best for that particular region is like a microcosm of how everything else should work.
Yes, I hope and pray your new place has room for a garden, a good-sized one too!
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