Seed sovereignty is a movement of caring for the Earth and for our neighbors. It empowers each of us to know and save our own seeds and to grow crops that are both resilient and culturally relevant.
Building Resiliency
Quality seeds that yield predictable and desirable foods are a vital part of a healthy food system. The more we can trust and encourage farmers to have access to good seeds, the better able they’ll be to excel in the marketplace and bring nutritional security to communities. It’s not getting any easier to be a farmer – farmers face soil degradation, droughts, unpredictable severe weather, and more. Climate-resilient growing practices are increasingly necessary, and procuring robust, adaptable seed is a key step. Importantly, many of these climate-adapted seeds are proving to be uniquely suited to thrive in their own terroir. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all variety of watermelon that’ll thrive across the country, but watermelon seeds saved from a plant that’s grown in your own garden may be specifically suited to withstand your climate.
Sharing Culture
In a strong seed-sovereignty movement, our seeds must not only be able to thrive in challenging and unpredictable conditions, but also be culturally relevant to the communities they’re grown for. Food and recipes are inextricably intertwined with our history, our current well-being, and our shared future.
Highlighting and sharing our cultural foodways with each other and with each new generation is important. Creating meals that honor our food traditions and landscapes enriches us socially and builds unity, care, and love throughout the food system. Culturally relevant seeds help us achieve this.
Seed diversity is truly a strength and a resource that’s the workhorse of our shared agricultural success and prosperity. It allows the farmer, seed grower, and community to overcome adversity, together.
A Festival of Flavors
Beth and Nathan Corymb of Meadowlark Hearth farm and seed company are enthusiastic about seeds and seed production, and their annual Seed Festival is the embodiment of a new seed movement. At the festival, they offer a glorious range of seeds for home growing or commercial use. The community can purchase a wide variety of vegetable, flower, and herb seeds. In addition to the seed festival, Meadowlark Hearth also produces bedding plants, offers a year-round community-supported agriculture subscription, and raises grass-fed cattle.
Festival attendees get a behind-the-scenes look at seed processing and growing practices. While touring this beautiful farm, we learned about the types of crops grown and how the farm’s layout allows for the best growing conditions for seed production.
At Meadowlark Hearth, we saw a large, juicy, and vibrantly red ‘Brandywine’ tomato being processed with a machine that pulverizes the tomato and deposits the pulp into a large bucket. The fresh tomatoes smelled robust and sweet. The red pulp hit the bottom of the bucket with a smacking sound, as each tomato built up a layer for the next. Soon, the bucket was full of a bright-red, luscious liquid that had to ferment for two weeks as part of the seed-harvesting process.
Next, we got to participate in a delightful method of dry-seed-crop processing. A large tarp was placed on the ground, and then carrot seeds heads were strategically placed on top of the tarp. Another tarp was placed on top so they were completely covered. Then, everyone was instructed to stand across from each other to form two rows. Musicians played a Virginia reel as we joined in to learn the musical cues, and then we were off to dance the day away on top of the carrot seeds.
Remarkable Cultivars
If you’re ready to start saving your own seed to contribute to this movement, the following open-pollinated plants from Meadowlark Hearth are a great place to start, as they’ll produce true to seed.
- The ‘Corne De Bouc’ French tomato is an unusual five-inch pointed tomato that can be eaten fresh, sun-dried, or processed to create a thick tomato sauce or fresh salsa. The flavor profile is sweet and slightly smoky, with a robust flesh and hearty structure. Corne de bouc means “goat’s horn,” referencing the shape. The outstanding flavor of this heirloom brings growers back year after year.
- The ‘Super Lakota’ tomato is an abundant producer with fleshy 6-to-8-ounce fruits. It’s an excellent slicing tomato that’s very juicy with good old-fashioned flavor.
- The ‘Shintokiwa’ cucumber is a large, dark-green cultivar from Japan with an outstanding crunchy texture and juicy and refreshing flavor. It can grow up to 10 to 15 inches long.
- ‘Rolanka’ carrots are a straightforward yet perfect cultivar. They store beautifully, and are ideal for cooking, which brings out the natural sweetness.
The ‘Amarant’ red cabbage is a heat-tolerant cultivar with a wonderful reddish-purple hue. It forms a nice solid head and stores for a couple of months into winter. It thrives as an early, midseason, or late-season crop. - ‘Golden Gopher’ melons were bred in the 1930s at the University of Minnesota. The ‘Golden Gopher’ produces an oblong fruit with a distinctive flavor. The melon is colorful and fragrant, weighing between 3 and 6 pounds. The taste is sweet and airy with lots of juice and succulent zest.
We were lucky enough to experience these incredible cultivars and enjoy the bounty of the land during lunch at the festival. Highlights included ‘Corne De Bouc’ tomatoes that were transformed into fresh salsa together with pungent and sweet ‘Valencia’ onions, aromatic ‘California Early-Nebraska Select’ garlic, and ‘Bolivian Rainbow’ peppers that added just the right amount of flavor and heat to the salsa. Their vibrant red, purple, and cream hues were stunning. The ‘Amarant’ red cabbage was grated beautifully and added to a bowl with a good dose of organic olive oil, salt, and pepper. The cabbage had a purplish-red color and a sweet, earthy smell. Overall, the food was comforting, nurturing, healing, and prepared with love, using produce grown from saved seeds.
The Beauty of Seeds
The Seed Festival was an elevation of the seed movement that allowed each participant to share in the wonder of the transformative nature of seeds. It was an enlightening and educational experience where we learned how to access, grow, and process different types of seeds, as well as to save them to create sturdy crops and ensure a stable seed supply.
Seed sovereignty is about accessing all of our innate growing, cooking, and harvesting abilities. This makes us more resilient human beings. Working towards seed sovereignty allows us to showcase our natural ability to care, love, and thrive in diverse and expansive environments.
Originally published as “Sowing Seeds, Building Community” in the December 2024/January 2025 issue of MOTHER EARTH NEWS and regularly vetted for accuracy.
April Jones is a community advocate from Akron, Ohio, who’s dedicated to promoting food justice, water access, and food sovereignty.