Growing a crop heritage

I have a love/hate relationship with weeding. On one level, there's nothing better than ridding your plot of unwelcome nutrient suckers. Then again, I could really do without the backbreaking labour required to pull out the invaders encroaching on my grains.

And this is just my 200-square-foot plot I'm whining about!

The exercise of weeding my plot makes me understand why on a larger scale, farmers would even entertain the idea of using products like agri-giant Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) Round-Up Ready seed. Just plant your crop, spray your chemicals and voila, a weed-free operation. In theory, it sounds like a good idea but the seemingly simple formula, in reality, is actually threatening world food security.

Just ask Robert Giardino, the founder and executive director of the Heritage Grains Foundation, based in Vancouver.

"We've seen from around the world, many farmers from developing nations and Third World countries who have basically lost everything and gone bankrupt because (their GM seeds) have not preformed and each year they have to buy new seeds," he said. "They've invested all of their life-savings in this new variety, basically throwing away and giving up everything they had before."

Giardino said the benefits of GM seeds have never really lived up to the promises made by their developers.

"Our quest for perfection and to take labour way from our daily lives has lead us into this very slippery slope that not only could impact on our food security but actually has already started to," he said.

Easier labour aside, another part of the drive to use GM products revolves around, you guessed it, money.

It's simply not as profitable for big corporations if farmers save their seeds and use them year after year.

But it's bigger than just the annual purchasing of seed.

"Heirloom and heritage varieties don't require any inputs when they are being cultivated," said Giardino.

Inputs are extras like fertilizers, growth hormones and chemicals to protect against mold and mildew and so on.

Essentially, he said, Heirloom and heritage varieties take money away from the people that produce fertilizers, from the people who produce the machines to spray and distribute the fertilizers, from the brokers, the retailers, from the wholesalers and so on down the line.

"There are a lot of financial reasons out there to go towards genetically modified seeds," he said. "The excuses go on and on with the justifications."

Heirloom and heritage varieties are often more hardy, and better able to be grown organically, or using Giardino's language, grown with little or no inputs.

"Quite often they are small scale," he said. That not only means higher quality but it's also a way to ensure from year to year you won't go without.

"With the farmer keeping half of the seed, and knowing that each time they grow, they can keep more seed... say next year there is a natural disaster and their entire crop is wiped out -- not a problem because they saved some seed."

Self-reliance is especially important in developing countries but becoming increasingly important in the First World as well.

"Things like hulless barley and hulless oats. They are very important for developing nations because they don't require any special machinery to remove the husks," explained Giardino.

"These particular varieties have sustained cultures and nations throughout the millennia. We need to bring things like that back."

Giardino said here at home we need to rethink our own approach, too. That's already happening with the advent of community-supported agriculture (CSA).

A CSA just started up in the Kootenays and another in Vancouver/

"I'm sure very shortly one will pop up somewhere on Vancouver Island," he said.

At its bare bones, CSAs are essentially small to mid-sized contract farming operations.

"Basically somebody will say they'll act as the organizers and brokers and get a bunch of basic consumers who want locally grown grain. They buy a share for, say $100, and for that $100 we guarantee that you'll receive X amount of pounds of grain at harvest time," explained Giardino.

The upfront cash goes towards the farmer buying equipment and buying seed and ensuring that all the labour that they need to expend during the growing season is covered.

"At the end of the harvest when they actually sell everything off they come out with a little bit of a profit instead of a loss. It's that incentive for someone to say 'yes I'll go through the trouble of growing something that people want because I know I've got my costs covered.'"

The benefit to the consumer is they get a variety of locally grown grain from a known source instead of going to a supermarket not knowing exactly where it came from, how long it's been stored, and under what conditions its been stored.

(I hear fresh grains taste better and are more nutritious too but that's a story for another day.)

The benefit to the grower is that they have basically a guaranteed sale.

But it can get even smaller-scale than that.

Victoria's Sharon Rempel started the Seedy Saturday seed exchange in 1989 after wanting to find a way for people to get together to share rare and heirloom variety seeds.

The idea took off like wildfire across Canada and this year marks the 20th anniversary of the first exchange. Events are held regularly across the country, including here in the Cowichan Valley.'

It's all in the name of food security.

"The hand that holds the seed controls the food supply," preaches Rempel, who is known as a pioneer in Canada's "organic" movement. "May seed always be in the hands of gardeners and farmers who will save and share this wealth."