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For the final day of #SeedWeek our Future Resilience Coordinator, Holly, explains the Crowd Breeding project creating new crops that are genetically diverse. Several varieties are mixed then allowed to promiscuously pollinate, and a crowd of humans join the party too, selecting for favoured characteristics. Diversity equals resilience in any system: by embracing the dynamism in difference, this collective of people and plants is already finding stable ground amidst an erratic climate.
We have lost some 75% of genetic diversity in our crops over the past 100 years. Just a little over a century ago, regional seed companies would offer an abundance of open pollinated varieties of vegetables to farmers and growers. Each variety would offer something unique, perhaps early ripening for our short season, or delicious culinary use, or be specifically adapted to the very local soils. And seed would be saved and traded and shared far and wide.
With the move towards industrial chemical agriculture and away from localised seed systems, there has been a shift to growing genetically homogenous, commodity crops that could be produced at scale, relied upon to deliver uniform yields when grown in ‘average conditions’, and supply produce that could travel well in the global market.
But in our current climate crisis, these genetically uniform crops are arguably no longer fit for purpose – they lack the resilience, and the plasticity to adapt and respond to our increasingly erratic weather patterns. When faced with adversity, many of these varieties fail to thrive.
We are all experiencing the very real effects of climate breakdown: last year’s very cold wet summer in the UK and Ireland and subsequent crop losses demonstrated how important it is for us to have resilient crops that can respond and adapt to these challenging conditions. We need a higher diversity of food crops to survive and thrive. As farmers and gardeners, we can all introduce more diversity by growing and saving seed from locally adapted open pollinated varieties. But we can also explore diversity within our varieties, looking at ways of stewarding crops that focus less on purity and preservation, and embrace all of the radical possibilities of seed.
The Seed Sovereignty Programme’s Crowd Breeding project emerged from this growing sense of urgency for decisive change. Inspired by participatory plant breeding projects in the USA, the Crowd Breeding project is about embracing diversity, and working together to create a viable alternative to the industrial seed system.
The focus of the project is to collectively create new evolutionary populations of crops that are genetically diverse, promiscuously pollinating and locally adapted. Unlike the stable varieties we’re used to growing, these evolutionary populations are less homogenous: each plant looking a little different to its neighbour, and potentially offering something unique in the process.
To create these diverse populations, several stable varieties of a crop species are mixed up and grown together and allowed to cross pollinate: enabling a re-pooling of genetics and potential explosion of diversity. Over time the grower begins to influence characteristics of the flock by selecting for their favourite characteristics, working in reciprocity with the crops. Through this broader selection process, these populations become fairly stable but remain dynamic: most importantly allowing adaptation to changing conditions over time.
28 commercial or community growers from across the UK and Ireland are currently participating in the Crowd Breeding project. As a group they have collectively decided which crops they wanted to focus on to create these new diverse populations, ones that they felt needed improving or developing to cope with our increasingly challenging growing conditions. Last year they chose Broad beans, Summer Squash and Kale. And together they decided on which varieties to mix together, to create an initial ultra-cross to kick start this breeding project.
Traditional plant breeding takes time, but with the need for immediate and significant action working collaboratively offers an opportunity to speed this process up, and also share some of the risks. With all of the participants growing out the same mix of seed, there is a chance to make more intentional selections, and bulk up seed stocks faster. The power of working collaboratively was particularly evident in last year’s challenging season– with several of the group losing their initial Broad Bean crop to the cold wet conditions. But all was not lost! As there were plenty of other participants stewarding that same seed, which could then be re-pooled and shared at the end of the season.
Community is at the heart of this work, and embarking on this participatory project together has provided solidarity & support between a group of farmers spread across the British Isles. Over time, these diverse populations will hopefully adapt to their environment and the increasing challenges faced, and also to the people that steward them – offering resilient and productive food crops of the future. The Crowd Breeding Project is intentional farmer led stewardship aimed at increasing diversity, and restoring a little bit of joy to our farming practices in the process.
