Seed Saving is the practice of collecting, drying and storing the seeds of vegetables, grain, herbs and flowers to have them ready for next season’s planting. It allows growers and gardeners to cultivate year after year without the need to purchase seed every growing season, and it is also the best way to build crop resilience and to protect endangered varieties and heritage plants. This makes saving seed an integral aspect in building food security, as well as restoring agricultural biodiversity.

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It connects us with nature

 

Seeds evolve and can adapt with the humans who grow them. Without them, there would be no human history. To save seed is to help nature reproduce; to participate in, and to retune ourselves to the earth’s cycles; and to remember that we are part of nature’s web.

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It's a booster to biodiversity

 

In the last century, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “some 75% of plant genetic diversity has been lost as farmers worldwide have left their multiple local varieties and landraces for genetically uniform, high-yielding varieties”. To save seed is to preserve seed diversity and the biodiversity – not only of species but also of food culture – of which it is a part. Heritage crops would not exist if not for the gardeners who meticulously grew and saved seeds, passing them on to future generations.

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It's an empowering act

 

Growing your own food and saving seed season after season is an act of care which is free, rewarding and puts the future of food in our own hands, while connecting us to the past.

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It's a source of joy

 

Planting a seed and watching it grow is a magical thing to experience. To see
the plant blossom and bear fruit, and to taste it, is deeply fulfilling. Saving and sharing seed with others is a source of communal joy. It has the potential to create abundance, and abundance entices us to share. It is a gift not only to those in the here and now, but also to future generations.