Sowing the seeds!

That's what we are up to on the farm at the moment... Or at least trying to, the weather has not really been on our side! But the direct drilled wheat pilot on the field I share with my sisters is a least drilled and sprouting! Hooray! One small victory.

It's also seed diversity day today! So seems only right to have a little ponder on the wonder and plunder of the seed!

According to the FAO the world has over 50,000 edible plants. Many of them have been domesticated by man over time. Farmers saving seeds,  crops to local environments, carrying seeds to new lands, evolving a rich diversity of varieties, landraces and charachteristics. But diversity is rapidly decreasing. 

60% of the worlds food comes from three plants. Wheat, maize and rice (FAO again!) and diversity within these is also being lost.

There have long been seed breeders growing seeds for sale. But the real change came in 1980, when unknown to much of the public the US Supreme Court ruled that living organisms could be patented, so long as they have been manipulated genetically.  That a company could own life. The rest of the world swiftly followed.

From a commercial perspective its clear to see the interests. Investment in research and technology for manipulating life needs to be returned on, fair enough. But this decision has been disastrous for seed and biological diversity and takes power away from farmers and under corporate control.

On Ferry Farm, like many many others, we buy seeds from the big companies like KWS who have huge budgets to develop new varieties. Some have more fungal resistance, some are shorter or have longer flag leaves. Equally some are also more prone to fungal disease,falling over and rust!

What this means is that KWS own the right to the seed. We cannot save it without paying them royalties (which are often not much less than buying the new seed). Moreover as many of them are hybrid varieties, we wouldn't really know what we were going to get next year.. And as they are not landraces (the traditional method of adapting wheat to local conditions) the wheat will not adapt to kcal conditions over time. So we lose a lot of the advantages too.. We have the choice of about 20 varieties of hard wheat that we can grow.

In conventional farming, the seeds will also be 'dressed'. That is dunked in chemicals which normally turn them a lovely fluorescent shade of orange. In wheat this is commonly with a fungicide to prevent common bunt, a very common and destructive fungal disease and often something to stop it tasting nice to slugs and birds. This also makes it hard for farmers to save seed (although a local farmer was telling me he ha a mobile seed dressing outfit that come to his farm and dress his own seed).

To my horror I discovered that our seed, and most others in the UK , are coated with 'redigo deter' This includes a neonicotinoid, a systemic pesticide which has been linked with colony collapse of bees.. Oh dear. I have been reassured by our 'agronomist' (who also happens to be the bloke who
sells us seeds and chemicals...) that as wheat does not flower it should not attract bees and that dressing the seed is much better than spraying the plant. Perhaps he is right but it is still a huge worry. 

In my travels I have been trying to find alternative solutions.. But found that many.. Including
 organic farmers are dressing the seed with something. Except for a wise lady biodynamic farmer I 
met in Brussels on the Good Food March. Who quite simply said that if you have a healthy soil and a well balanced system, you don't need to dress your seed. 

Here here. The problem is in reality, a wheat farmer that sells commercially cannot afford to take that risk. This certainly says more for the fact that specialisation lowers farm resilience and this creates more risk than anything. But for now, in order to survive, I don't think we can take the risk of not dressing the seed. But I shall keep lobbying for more soil improvers and increasing diversity and hope we get there one day and I shall keep searching for other organic alternatives (please do post if you know any!)

In terms of seed diversity. We do normally select three varieties to spread the risk a little. I am keen to mix these in one field to help with pest and disease resilience.. But it makes things more difficult from a chemical application perspective (ie we would probably end up using more than we need to as each has different requirements) so as long as you keep using chemicals... Seed biodiversity is compromised for his reason too. 

There are brave wheat farmers who save their seeds (and some anarchistic ones who don't pay their royalties!). Others who grow ancient varieties or mix up different varieties in one field.  Some who grow commercially but have a clear organic consumer market. I should really be hunting them down and finding out what they do! If you are one please own up a your secrets now! 

The problem is, if I am self-depricatingly honest, is that in order to survice you either need to find a unique market or you do what everyone else is doing to keep afloat. We have gone for the latter and the more I learn the more I respect those that haven't, but the more I realise just how hard it is. 

For now I have realised that we are doing what we are for a reason. Changing everything could lose all of my dad and Granada hard work. But we are continuing to try new things bit by bit and I hope we we are slowly finding a better way for the future. 

In the meantime we need policy to support us to do that and the political will to stop corporate control of seeds, and ultimately the food chain.