Seeds are a revolution. Seeds in our hands is power in our hands. We cannot have freedom without seeds.
This is my unofficial response to the Freedom Challenge #5: What's the next action you will take to ensure your freedom? There is still one day left to enter this challenge!
As a gardener I am an amateur seed saver. This year I am exploring the option of growing seed as a business.
I contacted some local (and non-local) seed companies to see if they needed someone to grow out some seed in isolation from their main crops. Turns out that one of the companies I contacted is indeed in need of help growing seeds and offered to have me grow out some lettuce and tomato seeds, despite the fact that it is already so late in the season to get started.
This is an opportunity for me to build a relationship with a seed company and learn from them details about seed saving and more about the seed industry. I am very grateful to them for extending that opportunity.
I have a lot of crazy ideas about the permaculture seed business that I may start in the future, maybe even later this season. But in the meantime I am jumping at the opportunity to be learning from some pros in the field.
Why am I even considering saving seed as a business in the first place?
Seeds represent great cultural value. The deeper I get into homesteading, gardening and farming the more appreciation I have for seeds.
My appreciation starts with the awe I have for nature's ability to pack genetics and life into such a small, unique beautiful package that is waiting to spring into its full potential. Watching seeds sprout and grow from cute little seedlings into an "adult" plant is unbelievable! As they say, seeing is believing.
Then my appreciation grows as I begin to understand the cultural value that seeds represent, both agriculturally and pre-agriculture.
Seeds are Food
Seeds themselves are super foods. Like milk to infants seeds contain everything that is needed to get growing into a robust seedling. Those starches, minerals and vitamins contained in seed give our bodies nutrition we need to thrive.
Beans, peas, corn, quinoa, wheat, oats, rice, amaranth are all examples of seeds that we rely on for our nutrition and sustenance. The list goes on and on and you can add spices that we consume to that list like fennel, mustard, onion, poppy, cumin to name a few.
What about nuts like walnuts, pecans, hickory, chestnuts, hazelnuts? They are seeds too!
And then there are berries like blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, currants... those all contain seeds!
What about fruit like oranges, apples, cherries, mangoes? They have seeds in them too!
Seeds grow food
Of course we also know that seeds can eventually become plants which feed us, including many staples such as potatoes, spinach, onions, turnips, carrots, celery and so on.
We owe our lives to seeds
Every human owes their lives to seeds. Our lives would not exist if we did not have seeds and plants which grew from seeds to consume. Even the meat that many of us eat depend on seeds.
Then we can look to our needs outside of food. Seeds give us shelters, fibers and energy so that we can have homes, clothing and heating for cooking and staying warm. Wood, cotton and hemp for example all start as a seed. Even in our modern world full of plastic we still rely on natural materials. In a post peak oil world we may be forced to again rely more and more on these natural materials. Why wait for that to happen?
We couldn't breathe without seeds.
If it weren't for trees and plants we would suffocate and die. They come from seeds. This fact alone motivates me to want to grow, collect and spread seeds.
I'll put it here on the blockchain as an intention: I want to grow, collect and spread seeds in a world that breathes.
And then of course there is the carbon sequestration that pulls carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and puts it into the biomass that can be done by nature's very own trees which also come from seed.
Seeds may offer spiritual connection
Collecting, saving, sharing and planting seeds can be spiritual actions to some. Every seed is a miracle. Its amazing that in some species one plant can produce hundreds or thousands of seeds. Each of which represent the potential for new life or ensuring the sustenance of a life.
Seeds are Freedom
Seeds give us freedom. Without access to nutritious food we cannot be free. Without access to diverse, nutritious food we cannot be free. Without our health we cannot be free. Without nutrition we cannot be mentally astute. Without our minds' power we cannot ensure our freedom.
Seeds are Power in Our Hands
There is a simple truth that I learned along the way as a gardener. If you are not a gardener then this may not have been apparent to you either, and so I'd like to share it.
If you are a cook or a family member likes cooking you may have some dried seeds in your pantry. Dried beans is a good example. You can take those beans that you bought in a store for food and plant it in a garden and you can get more beans from it.
That just blows my mind. Our food can give us more food! That is power in our hands.
For the preppers that has a month's worth of dried beans in the pantry, that means you actually have a lifetime of dried beans in your pantry if they are planted and saved every year.
The farmer/homesteader/gardener that has a years worth of beans for eating saved from last years' crop plus enough seeds saved for planting next year's crop is a rare occurrence in this day and age.
Reliance on Industry
There is a caveat to being able to plant your bean because it depends on where you got your beans. Some of the seeds that are sold to big agriculture are bred so that they will not produce viable seeds that can be planted the next year. This keeps farmers reliant on buying their seeds from the big seed producers.
The seed monopolies are great for the profit of the shareholders but horrible to ensuring our food security. Seed monopolies are a central point of failure. Our world's food supply becomes less and less diverse as the large companies grow less and less varieties of seed in order to satisfy their hunger for profit.
Local Seed Growers are Heroes
The local, small business, heirloom, open pollinated, mom & pop seed growers are heroes because they are fighting to ensure our freedom.
These seed growers are well aware that we depend on seeds for our lives and they have dedicated their own lives' work to growing high quality, heirloom open pollinated seeds in order to ensure our freedom.
These farmers are aware that seeds need to be grown locally and decentralized so that they are adapted to bio regional climates and soil and so are more healthy and resilient.
Local seed growers are aware that the seeds that they save every year, by the nature of their very businesses, are in essence a local seed bank. Because they are local and because local is different to everywhere seed businesses are distributed and so every seed business represents a distributed seed bank.
These seed growers are fighting the good fight and there are not enough local seed growers out there. We need more and the only way that will happen is if there is more demand.
As cooks we can help increase the demand for local seed by buying local food from local sustainable farmers, most of which purchase high quality open pollinated heirloom seed. As gardeners we can seek out local seed companies to purchase seed for our gardens.
Saving Seeds to Ensure My Freedom
As a passionate gardener who believes I have a right to my own freedom I am going to learn more about saving seeds and I am going to spend more time saving seed this year. I am going to plant more seeds to grow more food that give me sustenance. I am going to collect more seeds and share more seeds with others.
This is a radical action that will help ensure my freedom.
Who is 
?
?I am a ex-suburbanite turned permaculture homesteader. Follow my journey and I will share what I know and am learning along the way. You can learn more about me in my re-introducing @sagescrub post. Wishing you abundance in your life!
Know that I am likely NOT an expert on the subjects I present. Please do your own research and be your own expert!
