It was extremely interesting and enlightening to see the slides that Kay Baxter took of key seed saving sites in the USA when she and Bob Corker visited there last year The summary of her trip and the slides were shared with a group, representing seed savers of Auckland, Waiheke Island, Coromandel and Northland.
The main places she visited were Seedsavers USA based in Ohio, Seeds of Change of New Mexico and people who supply seeds on contract to Seeds of Change. A summary of her findings would show, that although there are good facilities, much good knowledge and expertise and a great variety of seeds grown and saved, there is a certain amount of vulnerability.
Kent Whealy the name and the key person associated with SeedSavers USA is not in good health. Seeds of Change has been bought by the Mars Corporation who are not traditionally associated with environmentally aware products or programmes. Some of the best seed growers who grow seeds for contract for Seeds of Change, work long hours, produce good quality seed but their work is not economically sound on an individual human level, by today's standards.
Kay suggested that we have most of the varieties of seed growing here in NZ that they have in USA. What we need to do, is to improve our storage facilities and grow enough plants of each variety of vegetable to maintain the genetic diversity within varieties.
The general feeling from within the group that was discussed in this meeting was that, even with the number of keen seed saving groups in New Zealand, the expertise is there only in too few of the groups.
John Massey spoke about the nature and purpose of Seedsavers Aotearoa to network amongst seedsavers in New Zealand, whether in groups or individually, to maintain links, to share knowledge and information as well as seeds. Seedsavers Aotearoa uses its web site, still developing, e-mail, or regular mail to keep up the connections amongst gardeners and seed growers that have traditionally been happening over the garden fence or amongst communities for hundreds and thousands of years.
Colin Walker spoke about the need for larger quantities of organic seed to be available especially of well known varieties that would be appropriate for commercial vegetable and crop growers and about the plan to hold some meetings with key people in Hawkes Bay in mid-March.
Roy Shackleton mentioned his role in maintaining Seedsavers Aotearoa web site and putting together the seed register. The web site is currently providing news and events and information about SSANZ. The aim is to get more of the seed saving groups to place information about themselves onto the web site. The seed register is still under development. It has been decided that a core set of data for each seed record will be used initially which can be expanded in the future. The focus is on simplicity so that all groups can record and exchange information without requiring advanced computer skills.
Seed saving groups can now send information of their events and details about their work to website@seedsavers.org.nz .
Contact: John Massey
Email: john@seedsavers.org.nz
Phone: 0-3-546 7098
Post: 45A Washington Rd, Nelson