Saving Native Seeds in the Southwest

Monday was one of the busiest days of the Southwest Tour so far. In the morning, we met water specialist and law professor Robert Glennon and spoke to him about water scarcity and agriculture in the region. In the afternoon, we spent some time at the seed bank run by Native Seeds / SEARCH.

Native Seeds / SEARCH is a nonprofit organization with the mission of preserving the genetic diversity of agricultural crops in the Southwest and northern Mexico, and they do so by maintaining a seed bank of rare and endangered plants and by encouraging people to grow and eat these crops. The project started in the early 1980s when a group of Native Americans on the Tohono O'odham reservation near Tuscon wanted to grow some traditional crops but couldn't find the seeds.

These days, the organization keeps thousands of seeds available for purchase and even donates free seeds to people of native heritage so that they can plant farms and gardens. A new facility is currently under construction, which is a good thing, because the seed bank we visited was overflowing with seeds. It holds about 2,000 varieties of ancient crops that were used by Native Americans in the region, about half of which are corn, beans, and squash. We filmed a great interview with seed bank curator Suzanne Nelson, who explained the importance of maintaining genetic diversity of plants in the Southwest.

For more information stay tuned for our video and visit the Native Seed / SEARCH website, and follow them on Facebook.

- Mark & Dorothée

Comments

[Carole]

Wow, this was so cool, thanks guy!

-Carole, Botany dork.

[Lila]

This is a very interesting topic! Thanks again for educating.