Farmers and gardeners have long appreciated a wide variety of plants and have nurtured them for meals, healing, and exchange. But diversity too often has been surrendered to monocultures of fields and spirits, predisposing much of modern agriculture to uniformity and, consequently, vulnerability. Today it is primarily at the individual level—such as growing and saving a strange old bean variety or a curious-looking gourd—that any lasting conservation actually takes place.

To start building a common space of thinking together, we’re going to meet up and discuss the first and third chapter of Virginia de Nazarea’s Heirloom Seeds and Their Keepers.  Nazarea studies seed-saving communities in the Philippines and the Global South, with special attention to the way farmers on the margins have preserved biodiversity and cultural memory.  You can find the full text here.  We know that time can be scarce in the thick of the quarter, so if you don’t get through all of the reading, no stress.