What's New at Heritage Farm
Posted June 25, 2010
June 25, 2010, Decorah, Iowa - Seed Savers Exchange, Inc., a leading non-profit organization dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds, announced today that Executive Director and President Aaron Whaley has resigned to pursue his dream of being a farmer.
Whaley grew up at Seed Savers Exchange, as the son of co-founders Kent Whealy and Diane Ott Whealy. He began working for the organization in a full-time professional capacity in 1996. Whaley led the commercial seed sales operation before he took over as Executive Director and President in mid-December 2009 when George DeVault left the job to return to his family farm in Pennsylvania.
"The loss of good people, such as Aaron and George, is what makes being a part of this movement bittersweet," said Chair of the Board, Amy P. Goldman. "Such individuals believe so deeply in sustainable and organic agriculture that the chance to be a farmer, and not an executive, is hard to resist. Aaron was given a golden opportunity to become a full-time farmer, and he took it. We all understand his motivation."
In addition to his work at SSE, Whaley had raised cattle and farmed on the side for years in the Decorah, Iowa area. He and his family will be moving to a 30-acre farm near Madison, Wisconsin.
As one might expect, Diane Ott Whealy, who is a Vice President at Seed Savers Exchange, has mixed emotions over Whaley's departure. "I was proud when Aaron was named the head of SSE, but I am just as proud that he is following his own dream-even though I am sad to see him go," said Ott Whealy. Whaley's knowledge and management skills will be missed. "Aaron is following his calling and we wish him well," said Goldman. "We'll visit him at the Dane County Farmers' Market, which is one of the best in the world."
Reflecting on his decision, Whaley said, "Working for Seed Savers for the past 14 years has been a wonderful experience. I have enjoyed working with everyone here and wish only the best for Seed Savers Exchange moving forward." Goldman said an executive search will be undertaken to identify the next leader of Seed Savers Exchange.
Founded in l975, Seed Savers Exchange operates an 890-acre farm in northeast Iowa where thousands of rare fruit, vegetable, and other plant varieties are regenerated and preserved in a central collection. Its mission is saving the world's diverse, but endangered, garden heritage for future generations by building a network of people committed to collecting, conserving, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants, while educating people about the value of genetic and cultural diversity.
Posted March 18, 2010
March 10, 2010 - Decorah, Iowa - Seed Savers Exchange, Inc., a leading non-profit organization dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds, has announced that a third deposit of heirloom seeds has been deposited safely into the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.
Acting President and Executive Director Aaron Whaley confirmed that Seed Savers Exchange has carefully selected and sent a total of 1,389 open pollinated varieties to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault since it opened in February 2008. SSE's recent deposit will help push the total number of accessions held at Svalbard to over 500,000.
Even though Seed Savers' share represents only a small portion of the total deposits at Svalbard, the organization's contribution is unique because the heirloom varieties are mostly seeds conserved by home gardeners. Here is a small sampling of the varieties in the most recent deposit: Bean-Blue Boy, Cucumber-Spring of Water, Cowpea-Tight Red, Ground Cherry-New Hanover, Melon-Plum Granny, Pepper-Jimmy's Little White Hots, Pumpkin-Algonquian, Tomato-German Pink, and Watermelon-Arikara.
"It is very reassuring to know that all of these varieties are in the vault for safekeeping," Whaley says. "It is especially moving for me to see that the German Pink Tomato has made its way back across the Atlantic." The German Pink Tomato was brought to America in 1883 by his maternal Great-Great Grandparents Michael Ott and Margaret Ertle from Dreuschendorf, Germany, and has been grown every summer by the family. In fact, German Pink was one of the two original varieties that inspired the founding of Seed Savers Exchange in 1975 by his parents.
Whaley also points out that, "Seed banks are one of the great ways to safeguard seeds; the other is to have the seeds growing in gardens far and wide." Members of the Seed Savers Exchange can gain access to the same seeds deposited in Svalbard through the annual 500-page Yearbook that is distributed to SSE's 12,500 members. The Yearbook - listing 13,263 unique varieties - serves as a networking tool linking members in sharing varieties with one another. Over the past 35 years, members have shared hundreds of thousands of varieties.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault functions like the ultimate safety deposit box for biodiversity and global food supply preservation, storing duplicate collections of seeds on behalf of gene banks from around the world. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault offers protection against permanent loss due to natural disasters, wars, equipment failures, accidents, and loss of funding that can plague even the best gene banks. As a service to the world community, the Government of Norway paid for completing the Svalbard Global Seed Vault's construction. The Global Crop Diversity Trust and the Government of Norway are financing its operating costs. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is managed by the Nordic Gene Bank (NordGen) under a tripartite agreement between the Government of Norway, the Global Crop Diversity Trust, and NordGen. Storage of seed in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is free of charge.
Located 78 degrees north, far above mainland Norway, three vault rooms have been carved inside a mountain, down a 125-yard tunnel chiseled out of solid stone. Naturally cold, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is further cooled to below -2 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature, seeds can be stored safely for decades - even if the earth warms or power goes out. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault has the capacity to store 4.5 million different seed samples (each sample containing about 500 seeds) potentially from 1,400 gene banks in more than 100 countries. The Seed Vault will soon house and secure the world's largest collection of seeds, including many varieties no longer grown by farmers or gardeners.
GERMAN PINK TOMATO - Photograph by Victor Schrager, from The Heirloom Tomato by Amy Goldman. Copyright Amy Goldman & Victor Schrager.
Posted February 5, 2010
A major donation to Seed Savers Exchange by board chair Amy Goldman has allowed the Robert Becker Memorial Library at Heritage Farm to acquire 500 rare and historic titles for its collection. Many of the books were published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The donation was made in honor of former Seed Savers Exchange President and Executive Director George DeVault.
Purchased from a book collector in New York, the "East Coast Collection" consists of five divisions: British Agricultural Literature, American Agricultural Literature, Historical Agriculture, Bibliography and Ephemera.
A sampling of the titles includes:
The Farmer's Complete Guide, John Ball, 1760
Essays and Notes on Husbandry, John Bordley, 1801
The New England Farmer, Samuel Deane, 1790
The Cider Maker's Manual, Jesse Buel, 1869
The American Farmer's Instructor, Francis Wiggins, 1840
Seed Savers Exchange librarian Bill Musser is in the process of cataloging the collection, which reflects the rich tradition of farming in America at a time when the nation was an agricultural country. The new titles will be especially useful to scholars and researchers, as well as organic gardeners and farmers interested in learning about the agricultural practices of our forefathers.
The Robert Becker Memorial Library, which houses more than 2000 vintage books, catalogs and magazines, was dedicated in 1998 in the memory of long time Seed Saver member Robert Becker, a professor of horticulture at Cornell University.
Posted January 8, 2010
The Seed Savers 2010 Yearbook is at the printers and will be mailed out in January. Members can access the Online Yearbook by clicking on this link http://yearbook.seedsavers.org and following the prompts.
Existing Online Users can go to the link and enter their username and password.
New Online Users need to create a username and password. Send us an email at membership@seedsavers.org. Include your membership number and the e-mail address you want to use for your online access. We will then send you a temporary password that you will be prompted to change the first time you log on.
To order or exchange seeds, members must use the Seed Request Forms in the printed Yearbook and follow the rules for requesting seeds. Happy gardening.
Posted November 19, 2009
This past spring, Glenn Drowns of Sand Hill Preservation Center near Clinton, Iowa, presented six different heritage poultry varieties for display at Heritage Farm. The Seed Savers� board of directors had voted in December 2008 to create this exhibit because heritage poultry, like heirloom seeds, are endangered reminders of our cultural and historical food origins.
The poultry exhibit soon became a popular place for visitors to observe Grey Pomeranian Saddleback geese, Khaki Campbell ducks, Buff-laced Polish chickens, Buckeye chickens, Black Jersey Giant chickens, and Chocolate Turkeys. Not your garden variety flock of poultry by any means.
In mid-November, with winter coming on we found new homes for our birds. Most of the birds returned to Sand Hill Preservation Center for breeding purposes. The rest were adopted by staff interested in starting their own flocks.
Glenn will bring a new set of poultry for our display each spring. He maintains so many different varieties at Sand Hill that it will be 15 years before Seed Savers sees the same variety twice.
Posted October 1, 2009
Find out what's happening here at Heritage Farm. Our new blog gives you updates on what's being harvested, planted and processed. It's also a great place to find practical tips for gardening and saving seed for the home gardener!
Also, look for us on Facebook, to receive updates on special events and preview our 8 minute movie.
Visit our Blog
Posted March 10, 2009
At least 550 Ancient White Park cattle are expected to be born throughout the United States this spring. "B Bar is expecting 400 calves this spring, Ayrshire Farms 59, and Seed Savers 50," says Aaron Whaley, Seed Savers' vice president, who is in charge of the Ancient White Park cattle at Seed Savers' Heritage Farm. His list goes on: Alec Bradford in Virginia is expecting 28 White Park calves, and Lance Kuck in Nebraska is expecting 13.
This year's record births show that the heritage breed is experiencing truly sustainable growth under the careful management of experienced breeders, who are dedicated to making breeding stock more widely available, Whaley adds.
There were only two Ancient White Park cattle in all of North America just 70 years ago. One bull and one cow were sent to the Toronto Zoo from England in 1939, to safeguard the breed in case of a Nazi invasion. The cattle were moved to the Bronx Zoo in 1941, then to the King Ranch in Texas the next year. The small herd was purchased by Moeckly Farms in Polk City, Iowa, in 1981. Seed Savers bought heifer calves from Moeckly Farms in the late 1980s when the Moeckly herd was bought out by B Bar Ranch in Montana (www.bbar.com).
"Ancient White Park cattle fit into our general farm program for several reasons: hardiness, meat flavor, and ease of management," explains Don Schrider, manager of the Large Livestock Unit at Ayrshire Farm (www.ayrshirefarm.com) in Upperville, VA. "Our Ancient White Park cattle are extremely hardy animals, requiring almost no veterinary care . The breed has proven quite intelligent, adapting readily to our rotational grazing. The cows are easy birthers and are protective mothers."
"But it may be the exceptional flavor of the meat that is this breed's greatest asset. The finest steak I have ever had was a ribeye from an Ancient White Park steer. Those that pause and savor the flavor when eating meat from this breed will understand why the ancient Romans proclaimed that the 'wild ox of Britain' produced the best tasting beef."
The status of Ancient White Park cattle is presently listed as "critical" by The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. (www.albc-usa.org). That is the Conservancy's most endangered rating. It means that fewer than 200 annual registrations are made in the United States, and the estimated global population is less than 2,000. The next, less serious rating is "threatened," which requires fewer than 1,000 annual U.S. registrations and a global population of less than 5,000.
Seed Savers Well Represented
Updated 4/15/2009
The first anniversary of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway -- dubbed the "Doomsday Vault" by the press and hailed by Time as one of 2008's greatest inventions--was celebrated on February 26, 2009, with dignitaries in attendance from around the world, including Seed Savers Exchange Board members Cary Fowler and Chair Amy P. Goldman. The anniversary celebration included a talk and tour of the Seed Vault by Fowler, who is also the Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, one of the Seed Vault managers.
"I was awed and deeply moved by the Seed Vault," Goldman says. "Seeing all the deposited seed there, especially Seed Savers' farmer and gardener-saved seed, makes me feel a lot more secure. As Cary says, we know those varieties will not go extinct."
Seed Savers was among the opening day depositors in 2008, with an initial deposit of 485 varieties of vegetable seed from its collection. A second deposit was shipped in April and has been received, says Matthew Barthel, SSE vice president of gardens and collections. He and his staff had tested seed viability and listed, packaged and prepared the deposit for shipping to the Nordic Gene Bank for months, in compliance with the bank's strict regulations.
The anniversary celebration included a dinner talk by Frank Loy, the senior advisor to the Obama presidential campaign on environment and climate change (and chair of the Environmental Defense Fund) and the Norwegian Minister of Agriculture, Lars Peder Brekk, presided. A number of other individuals, prominent in the climate change and biodiversity communities, were present, including executives from Al Gore's organization, The Climate Project.
The program included a seminar on climate change and the role of crop diversity in adaptation to global warming, with talks by David Lobell of Stanford University and David Battisti of the University of Washington. "Both men recently authored stunning and sobering articles on this topic in Science," says Fowler. Tens of thousands of new seed sample varieties were deposited in the Seed Vault as part of the celebration.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault functions like a safety deposit box for biodiversity and global food supply preservation, storing duplicate collections of seeds on behalf of gene banks from around the world. The Seed Vault offers protection against loss of diversity due to natural disasters, wars, equipment failures, accidents, and loss of funding that can plague even the best gene banks. As a service to the world community, the Government of Norway paid for the complete cost of the Seed Vault's construction. The Global Crop Diversity Trust and the Government of Norway are financing its operating costs. The Seed Vault is managed by the Nordic Gene Bank (NordGen) under a tripartite agreement between the Government of Norway, the Global Crop Diversity Trust, and NordGen. Storage of seed in the Seed Vault is free of charge.
Located at 78 degrees north, far above mainland Norway, three vault rooms have been fashioned inside a mountain, down a 125-yard tunnel chiseled out of solid stone. Naturally cold already, the Seed Vault is further cooled to below -2 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature, seeds can be stored safely for decades-even if the earth warms or the power goes out. The Seed Vault has the capacity to store 4.5 million different seed samples (each sample containing about 500 seeds) potentially from 1,400 gene banks in more than 100 countries. The Seed Vault will soon house and secure the world's largest collection of seeds, including many varieties no longer grown by farmers or gardeners.
The emerging international norm is to have each distinct plant variety conserved in one facility where it can be actively managed under international standards (including availability for viability testing, regeneration, and distribution), plus inactive back-up storage at Svalbard. Cary Fowler notes that Seed Savers Exchange's seed collection does not fully meet this international norm, although SSE's own efforts, and its inactive storage at the Seed Vault and at the U.S. National Genebank in Fort Collins, Colorado are laudable. Storage at the Seed Vault provides credible conservation and robust protection for the varieties that SSE is entrusted to preserve, though the seeds remain the property of SSE.
As specified in the depositor's agreement signed by Seed Savers Exchange, the seeds that SSE deposits in the Seed Bank are available only to SSE-there is no transfer of ownership of the seeds that are deposited by SSE or any other entity. Financial donors to the Global Crop Diversity Trust (see www.croptrust.org) do not get access to seeds in the Seed Vault, other than those they may have deposited there themselves. A wide range of developed and developing countries are donors to the Global Crop Diversity Trust for many purposes other than the Seed Vault's operating costs, and include the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland, Ethiopia, Brazil, Colombia, and India. (Corporate donors, including Syngenta and Pioneer/DuPont, who made unrestricted donations to the Global Crop Diversity Trust for its endowment prior to the Seed Vault's existence, do not have access to seeds stored in the Seed Vault by others.)
Seed stored at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault by SSE will not be distributed to others by the Norwegian government, nor will it be made available to patent claims of others. Seeds in the SSE seed collection are pre-existing, or "prior art," and as such, they cannot be patented. (And if a patent is mistakenly granted for a pre-existing variety, there is legal recourse to annul the patent.) On the other hand, new varieties, derived from or created using an old variety, are patentable in most countries of the world, provided they meet the applicable country's criteria for patentability. SSE prohibits dividing and reselling Yearbook seeds; but the Yearbook specifically acknowledges that after seeds are regrown once, the resulting seeds, plants, and produce are available to SSE members to use however they please. The patenting of a new variety that has an older variety from SSE's collection in its pedigree does not change the legal status of the SSE variety, nor does it prohibit subsequent access to or use of that variety, nor restrict its use in additional breeding programs.
SSE's deposit of seeds in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault "deepens the commitment of the organization to ensuring the long-term conservation of the diversity that has been entrusted to us," Amy P. Goldman remarked. "We honor, trust and depend upon our members, but we know that varieties can be lost and that neither the membership nor our own seed collection is immune from loss. The Seed Vault offers free insurance to us and the other seed banks of the world. It is internationally accepted and monitored. We are happy to participate, grateful for the opportunity, and fully supportive of the goals of the Seed Vault."
More Information:
Cary Fowler: One seed at a time, protecting the future of food
Ministry of Agriculture & Food
nordgen.org
croptrust.org
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