No Food resilience without Seed resilience

Food is ‘macro’: people see and relate to food, but seed is ‘micro’ and has become invisible. But so are atoms. Both are absolutely elemental to our existence.

So often at SGFP, we're having conversations about issues that are at the heart of our local or national food struggles. All issues are connected: "wicked problems", as they're often called... so we have to think in systems. I learned this through years of food systems research, but food resilience really hit home as a market gardener during the pandemic.

In 2020, people were scared and they panicked. They started to worry about food supply as shortages hit, so they did the logical thing: Order seeds and get growing.

Seed producers were broadsided by a sudden surge in demand, and had to make quick decisions about how many orders they could manage, sustainability of their stocks and who to prioritise. Market Gardens (thankfully) were seen as essential to efficiently grow lots of food, so they were able to get priority and order bigger packs from seed retailers. Dividing up these bigger Grower's packs helped to launch the Bishop's Castle Community Seed Bank. With creativity, everyone responded and adapted to the circumstances.

Now the conversation around crisis and food resilience has become a hot topic in food systems work, after all, food security is National security and we live in a time of 'polycrisis'.

This morning, I came together with Callum Etches, a researcher from Sussex University, and Catherine Howell of the Gaia Foundation's Seed Sovereignty Programme and we spoke to independent seed producers across England, Wales and England. This was a food resilience conversation to reflect on their experiences of the Pandemic to understand how they navigated crisis. We talked about current worries, threats and risks, and what plans would look like to reduce our vulnerability to food shocks, starting with home-grown, open-pollinated seed.

At SGFP, our Feeding Resilience pilot project (see previous post), the Bishop's Castle Community Seed Bank and local seed training sessions all support our aim of boosting visibility of seed as elemental to our food system in Shropshire. But we're going beyond that - at SGFP we have a lot of conversations, and we're linked with many networks. This message is one that we bring into every room with us. I'll be taking it to an upcoming ARU workshop in London next month on backcasting for UK food resilience (lots of crisis scenarios and 'what ifs'), as well as feeding it into the Donought Economics Action Lab (DEAL), consulting on a 'food sector doughnut'. Expect seed resilience to be my refrain at conferences panels and in food system initiatives - from farm, to community, to county, Marches and national levels.

Looking ahead: We'll be sharing reports and info as our research continues. This work is part of a larger research project through Sussex University investigating what the UK horticulture industry needs to thrive under the new National Food Strategy under DEFRA.