The twin values of an indigenous seed bank

[Judi Lynn]

15 June 2020

Andrew J Wight

Providing food security and preserving culture.

In the central highlands of Guatemala, Rosalia Asig Cho ushers a small group of visitors into a one-room building, filled floor to ceiling with shelves of earthenware cylinders containing seeds from Indigenous families across the area: corn, amaranth and other crops almost lost during Guatemala’s decades-long civil war.

Seed banks, usually associated with the massive “doomsday vault” in Svalbard, with its nearly 1 million samples, are seen as backup copies of crops that might otherwise be lost due to natural or human factors.



Rosalia Asig Cho. Credit: Andrew Wight

Experts say seeds from traditional agricultural varieties — otherwise known as landraces or heirloom breeds — could help solve food shortages and malnutrition, as well as boost food system resilience to climate and cultural challenges.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), in the 20th century, around three-quarters of the world’s crop genetic diversity has been lost as farmers adopted high-yielding breeds with relatively little genetic diversity. Now around 95 percent of the energy we get from food comes from only about 30 kinds of food crops.

More:
Rosalia Asig Cho. Credit: Andrew Wight
Experts say seeds from traditional agricultural varieties — otherwise known as landraces or heirloom breeds — could help solve food shortages and malnutrition, as well as boost food system resilience to climate and cultural challenges.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), in the 20th century, around three-quarters of the world’s crop genetic diversity has been lost as farmers adopted high-yielding breeds with relatively little genetic diversity. Now around 95 percent of the energy we get from food comes from only about 30 kinds of food crops.

More:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/sustainability/indigenous-seed-banks-rise-to-the-challenge/

[Lonestarblue]

1. We have lost diversity of seeds as well.

Studies have shown that the heirloom seeds provide greater nutrition than the GMO varieties—and they aren’t engineered with Roundup. We should all be asking why we have such an unhealthy population compared with other developed countries, and thus worse results from Covid-19. Almost every processed food, including savory soups, have sugar added and that adds lots of calories but no nutrition.

I would love to see more government subsidies taken away from corn producers and given to organic vegetable producers so that their prices can be afforded by everyone. Many rural areas have been taken over by big agribusiness that pumps crops full of chemicals and drives small farmers our of business. And, like the fossil fuel industry, they get billions of our tax dollars in subsidies every year.

[noneof_theabove]

2. my email tag line...

Food processed to be nothing more than simple starches with two dozen flavorings,
stabilizers, sugars, artificial ingredients, antibiotics and pesticides added to make it appear
to be food -- is not "food".

It is "feed" -- what you give to livestock to fatten them up for slaughter.

[pazzyanne]

3. I have used heirloom seed for over 40 years.

Don't plant anything else.