Show Highlights:
https://permacultureforthefuture.com/episode4/
About Bill McDorman
Bill McDorman is Executive Director and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance (RMSA), a non-profit seed conservation organization serving the Rocky Mountain West and beyond. He was previously the director of Native Seeds/SEARCH in Tucson. Bill founded 3 seed companies including High Altitude Gardens and co-founded several non-profits including the Sawtooth Botanical Garden in Hailey, Idaho. He is the author of Basic Seed Saving which he wrote in 1994. He and his wife Belle Starr, former Deputy Director of NS/S and Deputy Director of the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance created an innovative week-long training called Seed School, Seed School Teacher Training, Seed School Online, Grain School and recently an upcoming training called, Seed & Grain Forum. The courses have graduated over 1200 Seed Citizens since the original program began in September of 2010 including many seed librarians, growers and educators. Bill's latest passion is to bring awareness to certified organic, patented seeds that cannot be saved which flies in the face of fostering biodiversity and resilient seed systems.
Links:
Show Highlights:
https://permacultureforthefuture.com/episode4/
About Bill McDorman
Bill McDorman is Executive Director and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance (RMSA), a non-profit seed conservation organization serving the Rocky Mountain West and beyond. He was previously the director of Native Seeds/SEARCH in Tucson. Bill founded 3 seed companies including High Altitude Gardens and co-founded several non-profits including the Sawtooth Botanical Garden in Hailey, Idaho. He is the author of Basic Seed Saving which he wrote in 1994. He and his wife Belle Starr, former Deputy Director of NS/S and Deputy Director of the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance created an innovative week-long training called Seed School, Seed School Teacher Training, Seed School Online, Grain School and recently an upcoming training called, Seed & Grain Forum. The courses have graduated over 1200 Seed Citizens since the original program began in September of 2010 including many seed librarians, growers and educators. Bill's latest passion is to bring awareness to certified organic, patented seeds that cannot be saved which flies in the face of fostering biodiversity and resilient seed systems.
Links:
Josh Robinson: 0:00
Welcome to the permaculture for the future podcast. I'm your host, Josh Robinson. The world is full of negative news, and the planet seems to be in an ecological crisis, and this can be downright disheartening and disenfranchising because we feel that there's nothing that each one of us can do is an individual that can make any difference. Well, I'm here to provide a different perspective to tell a new story. The Permaculture for the Future podcast is all about spreading positive and impactful stories, tips and ways that each one of us can transition into a regenerative lifestyle where we can make an ecological impact way. Talk about simple ways to make lifestyle changes as we interview authors, teachers and other folks that air collectively healing ourselves and the planet. So if you want to make an ecological impact stick around this podcast, it's for you. Welcome to episode number four of the Permaculture for the future podcast I'm your host, Josh Robinson, and on today's show, we're joined by none other than an old friend, Bill Nick. Doorman Bill is the executive director and co founder of the Rocky Mountains Seed Alliance, a nonprofit seat conservation organization serving the Rocky Mountain West and beyond. He was the previous director of Native Seeds Search in Tucson as well. Now Bill has also founded three seed companies, including High Altitude Gardens, and co founded several nonprofits, including the Sawtooth Botanical Garden in Hailey, Idaho. He's the author of Basic Seed Saving, which he wrote in 1994 And he and his wife, Belle Starr, former deputy directors of Native Seeds Search and the Rocky Mountain Seat Alliance, created an innovative weeklong training called Seed School, See School teacher training and Seed school online as well as the recent grain school. And they have a new training coming up called Seed and Grain Forum. Thes courses have graduated over 1200 Seeds Citizens since the original program began in September of 2010. He's also include many seed libraries, growers and educators. And Bill's latest passion is to bring awareness to organic certification, patented seeds that cannot be saved and which fly in the face of fostering biodiversity and resilient seed systems. Now, I first met Bill in 2005 when he was a keynote speaker at a master gardener conference in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Bill got up there to talk about seed saving. Now this is a topic I wasn't that familiar with at that point in my life. But he spoke with such passion and excitement that from that point on, I could do nothing but think about saving seeds. And when Bill started that first seed school back in 2010 I was lucky enough to drop in for a little while and see how they were doing it. And later on in around 2012 I was able to take the full seed school up in Los Angeles and again, mind blowing information for anybody, not just gardeners. But this is about how you can create a regenerative food system, because if you don't have local sovereignty of seeds, it's really hard to have a sovereign food system. So without further ado, here's Bill to demystify what it means to save seeds. All right, well, welcome bill to the permaculture for the future podcast. I was wondering if you could just share a little bit of your background about what you do and how you do it, Rick, guarding some of the seed projects that you've been doing for the last 40 odd years.
Bill McDorman: 4:32
Yeah, I would. I'd be happy to. I got started when I was in college, and I bought a little house, and I have my own garden for the first time. My very own garden. For the first time, I was going to get to decide everything was gonna be planted. You know, my family always garden, but it wasn't mine, and it really wasn't a problem. But now I get to do it. And so that sent me on this adventure to find the best seats. I mean, because 90% of the work you know happens all the way through the season. So you gotta you gotta have the good seats to start with. Are you wasted all of that. And so I started looking around, and before I was done, I was at a great land grant liberal arts college at the University of Montana. Yeah, a lot of smart people around hooked into the world and sort of uncovered this, Uh ah, the this problem that the world itself was losing diversity. And that was echoed by my neighbor, Uncle Vic, who lived next to me on the old north side of Missoula. who said, You know, the old varieties that I used to get out of catalogs I can't find any more. We're more stuff is disappearing as the catalog companies got bigger and and slicker and more pictures, the actual varieties that worked in Western Montana disappeared. So that set me on this adventure to try to find stuff that was had been around, that the gardener's there knew about. That I knew would work really well for me. By the time I got done, we had started a nonprofit, and then we started a little seed company to help pay for the nonprofit. That was the start. Honestly, I thought it was about a three year project. You know, I'm here. I did it. I was on my way to law school. Actually, I was going to go to law school and I thought, I'll detour and and get this going because we found these seeds. Now we can have a little seed company. Get him out. We'll get people in there to run. It will be a really great and so I'm still doing the same thing in some ways. You know, I just never got back out of it.
Josh Robinson: 6:26
So what year are we talking about? When were you in Montana? There
Bill McDorman: 6:29
I was in Montana from 1976 to 1982. Okay, so we started seriously talking about seeds as, ah, community activity in 79. And so we started a little C company called Garden City Seeds, and it was eventually sold to Irish eyes, which is still going in western Washington, eastern Washington. And so somebody I saw their cattle, like a couple of years ago, and some of the descriptions of the vegetables in that catalogue, our once that my roommates and I wrote way back in the early that they just kept getting carried forward in the catalog, year after year after year of these really great varieties of things that we found. So I ended up running another ice moving home to Idaho after that and starting another C company called High Altitude Gardens. And I incorporated that after a few years under the name Seeds Trust. And so I ran what I called seeds Trust High Altitude Garden for 28 years. And so
Josh Robinson: 7:28
I first met you. That's what you were doing on
Bill McDorman: 7:30
corn until we had about 20,000 customers at high elevations all over the world, because I was at 6000 feet with no growing season, basically. So what grows there? Well, we've started finding stuff like Siberian tomatoes, which sounds obvious, you know. And then after that bell, my wife and I were recruited to become the directors at Native Seeds Search in Tucson. And they have a C company. There's kind of a conflict. So we sold the C company toe one of our interns, and we did that for three years. And then we were recruited to start a native seeds search type seed conservation organisation for the whole Rocky Mountain West. And so we decided to do that. I still have my mailing list with 20,000 people. I had a 28 year track record with gardeners all over the Mountain West. So it just seemed like it would be easy to get something, you know, up and running easier than probably other people with for the same kind idea. And so, with John Cash, a friend of mine, we put that together. We got some really great funding for the 1st 3 years, and, um, the rest of sinister We were almost six years old now, and we've, you know, we've got 3000 seats Stuart's that have all dedicated themselves, signed up and pledged to grow and, um, save and share sees to at least one thing. We've got over 100 graining trialist working on heritage in ancient grains in the mountain West to help us and find out what works where the embers, the eyeing corns, the spells, all the stuff that used to work here and find out where it worked has work. At 9000 feet. Does it work down in the desert in New Mexico? I mean, the Mountain West is really got some extreme stuff, so we didn't want to know what works where and then they're helping to increase. Those seats were given to farmers. And so that's really you know what the right command seed line starts. We inspire, we educate. And then we network everybody through this off the shelf software we have so that everybody can find everybody enlist what they have and share among themselves. And that way it doesn't take our staff time to do that. So I feel really unburdened. The traditional non profit so much of the energy, especially the large ones, goes to just taking care of the nonprofit and the buildings or the and the people and all the stuff. And and we don't have any of that. You know, we've got four people basically, that live in four different states, that meat by zoom that can dedicate 80% or more of our energy and time educating in inspiring people beautiful. That's the way to grow a network. And our goal is real simple. We want the seeds for the Rocky Mountain West to come from the Rocky Mountain last that will be adapted. That will be a huge new diversity in the mountain West again, the way there was two generations ago. And with that and with the knowledge and our network together we can weather the storms that are coming. They're already here in many places,
Josh Robinson: 10:27
Some Wow, there's a lot that you just kind of touched on there. I mean, you've been starting your first seed businesses back in the seventies. You've continued on. You've grown. I mean, no, you've kind of traveled around the world collecting seeds and stories with those seeds and sharing them, you know, freely with others. I think a lot of people that are new to gardening or even gardeners have been around for a while. I mean, I've known a lot of yeah, master gardeners, and you start talking about seed. The first thing that they start to look at us like the seed catalog or talking about the you know, Johnny's air. You know, wherever it is that they're getting their their seed from. And what I wanted to talk to you about was, what is this big difference in seeds that were growing locally that were saving locally versus ordering From, you know, any of the catalogs, even some of the small, smaller seed producers out there that might be growing in Maine or someplace is quite different from where you are, what are some relieve the advantages of saving your own seed?
Bill McDorman: 11:31
Well, you know, I think the seed industry and I think there was profit motive in it. I don't think that was the whole thing I think was our culture. But largely since World War two, we've created this cult of expertise and, um, and home gardeners don't think that their seats would be good if they saved him anyway, right? They're not gonna be a SCO deceased Experts are being done in universities or or corporations, and, you know, and and frankly, the seed saving culture that's grown up so far, it reinforces that so many of the city's basic seat saving books she open up. I'm thinking about Susan Ashworth THS famous book, See Deceit, which was done after 10 years of the Seed Savers Exchange in Duke or Iowa to tryto put together all the tricks that although the seat savers from around the country had put that had come up with to actually just make the craft of seed saving easier for everyone. But you open up that book and it's in Latin, the table of contents. It's all by family names, right? And you know So when I open that up the first time I went, I want to learn Latin. I just want to save seeds. Like what? You know what what's going on here? And lots of times. There's glass Aries with all these terms, and then they hit you with things like inbred depression and separation distances for purity. And you can't save seeds from that in your own neighborhood because it may not breed true. Or you can't save seeds from hybrids right there. Either sterile or they're not gonna breed true. So you know all this all these miss kind of rolled together is what I grew up with us. A gardener I think most of us did infected The best gardener in my hometown Judy household told me one time that all American gardeners know they can't save seats. You can't save American seats. That was just a truth to her. Like, what are you talking about? You know, But then I got me to thinking in and, um, almost everything. She was going with a hybrid out of a catalog. And and if you try to save the seats, you may not get what you plant it right now, the grand parents may show up or some combination of their characteristics, And so, you know, she just thought it was something we shouldn't do. So So I think the number one thing I've learned along these lines and what I would say toe gardeners is that that's the myth that for 10,000 years humans have been growing and saving sees right where they are with basically no technical knowledge. I mean, 99 I think. Dr Gary nah. Bennett's University of Arizona says that 99.9% of all the breeding, all this all the significant breeding work done implants was done before Mendel. Before we discovered even what genetics were. And it was done by people who largely didn't know what they were doing. Except they knew enough to save the seeds from whatever worked for them. And that was better. And we know now biologically, that there are millions of variables that interact on a plant as it goes through a season, and that there is. You talk a little bit about that. Yeah, you know, there's not a lot of time to talk about it here, and this is You can see now what we double click on whom you get into seed school because these air really important points. But if you were going to college and you wanted to become a plant breeder in the United States of America and 2020 20 almost all the programs in the United States now are for biotech. You know, there's you can get into the math end of it at the University of Arizona. Now, the quantitative analysis You know, the gene sequencing is really getting big, but that's some version of a really high tech version of plant breeding. There's very little what we called public plant breeding or traditional plant breeding top in this country, but you would have to get your undergrad in. One of the books is still used in underground breeding programs. Even the biotech ones is the principles of plant breeding all red. And in that book there's some really interesting paragraphs and one of them, and we quote this in our seats schools that says something to the effect that nature itself can sometimes be more efficient and effective. It's selecting for characteristics that plant breeders can't even identify, you know, and what's really interesting. In the next paragraph, they go back off on their scientific breakdown and deconstruction of the whole thing. But just for a moment there, admitting something that, to me is just obvious. How didn't we get our food system? You know, almost everything we eat was a wild plant, you know, and they're inedible. You know, You look at Children pains or these little teeny super hot things. They're not like the peppers we have these days. Te'o Santa is the mother of all corn. It's a tropical grasses 24 inches high. There's no yield from that. And their rock hard little black things is all you can get offthe. Um, I mean, all of these foods were transformed through this simple act of saving seeds for something you liked right where you are. And so that's what you're giving up. When you buy your seats in a catalog, you don't know where it came from. You don't know what forces and what mo mentum I'd like to call it. It has for your particular likes, cultural, your flavors, war, your environment. You're now changing environment. And so you know, and collectively, if we all do that, we're screwed. You know, we've got three companies now that you own and control 60 to 70% of the world's seats, you know, and I don't see anything putting the brakes on the mergers and acquisitions in the sea dentistry, even the organic exceeding street. And so those kinds of adaptations in the amount of diversity that those companies have is still shrinking. And so at this point, in history is time for us to all wake up and reawaken this beautiful ritual that not on Lee starts to give you something that's more adapted and parcel of your own environment so that it can weather this forms. But it brings you stories and connections. It may be the best community building device we've ever seen. You know, as witnessed by you know, the 600 seed libraries that have started themselves, you know, around the world in over 400 in the United States and the seed exchanges, you know, every Saturday or Sunday somewhere in Canada, they have a CD Saturday or a CD Sunday and they become part of the fabric and people are getting to know each other. And gardeners aren't just exchanging seeds. They're exchanging knowledge about how we can all Hey, did you guys get that early frost? Er, I got a new blind this year or whatever. It just strengthens the whole community. So you get back into that stream of information and knowledge when you start growing in saving your own states. That's the other thing. And then maybe the most important thing is that you reconnect yourself and I know this is one of the themes of your podcast. You reconnect yourself with maybe the most productive system humans can connect to. I mean, it is exponential. How many seeds you get. Don't you start saving seed. You have to get a ball with a community or you feel guilty. It's like, What am I gonna do with all this stuff? Right? One tomato can give you enough seats to last your own backyard garden for the rest of your life. And that's just one tomato awful one plan. What happens if you save it from two or three so you can see how this starts to change the way people think about this? Things it's not. We're not. In an age of scarcity, we just forgot how productive weaken be with this beautiful gift of a seed system that's being given to us from 10,000 years of people performing these rituals. And so you know, that's that's kind of the distillation. Long answer. Short question.
Josh Robinson: 19:27
Maybe, Bill, that there's a lot to unpack there. I mean, just going back to this 10,000 year plus tradition. I mean, so for 10,000 years of agriculture and even Before that, we had kind of like more horticultural societies that were still essentially saving seed in some fashion or planting brain. So it's It's this cultural legacy that we've been doing that's ingrained almost, it seems like in our d n a. And through that tradition, can you talk a little bit about, like, just the diversity of the different crops that we've had and where they've kind of gone
Bill McDorman: 19:59
now? Well again. I mean, you know their numbers. Around the world. There were around 1500 different plants being eaten in large quantities, being producing it and and relatively large countable quantities in 1900. And as midden is, 50,000 plants have been eaten by humans. I think Dr Gary Navin again did a study and cleaning. Then he and Richard Felder, I think, said it was possible there 35,000 different plants eaten in North America in its history by humans. So this huge diversity, you know, So even when you get it 1900 the industrial revolution and you bring it up, we still have 1500 you know. Today, 30 plants provide over 90% of human nutrition and four provide 75% of all human calories consumed. And of those four wheat, rice, Corrine and soybeans, we're down to just a handful of varieties owned by a handful of companies That kind of give me a picture of of how this diversity lost. You know, at least among what most of us are eating has evolved. There are there are claims that in 1900 I think Norman Boer Lack said this. He was the father of the Green Revolution and worked in wheat that there were 30,000 varieties of wheat being grown around the world in 1900. Wow, 30,000, 30,000 varieties of wheat. And you don't you don't you know? Well, you know, I don't know hundreds, but more importantly, they're almost all the same genetics after Norman Borlaug. They all have, you know, some very common genetic characteristics that are vulnerable, given the right disease that will come. It's not if it's when that's biology, young, big food, you know, you're gonna have something evolve to take advantage of it, and that's what we've done and set ourselves up. We've had a number of you know, disasters in our corn crop. We lost billions of dollars in corn, 1.8 billion or something in the Southern United States in 1980 you know, and we just lost a huge amount of corn just three or four years ago because of drought in the Upper Midwest. All the varieties, you know, have the same sort of environmental parameters gets too hot. None of it works right. Whereas if you were growing your own kind, or if you had 30,000 different kinds growing, some would make it. And some wouldn't it just be part in part show of this natural system, you know, resilient system. And so yeah, 30,000 varieties is a lot. And what's even more disturbing to me I was just in Montana, where they grow a lot of weed, and almost everything that the farmers are being offered now is patented or protected by a contract that says you can't save your own seeds. They're ending this system of farmers, being able to say things that are adapted or work better on their own farms. And even though a lot of Montana we country looks the same, it's vastly different from the high line all the way down to Bozeman and along the river valleys, Yellowstone or whatever. And so even if you planted the same variety of wheat, you know, if they could save their own seats from that stuff that worked best within a relatively short period of time, those population and would start to evolve differently. And that creates diversity. And that's how we got 30,000 varieties in the first place. And so it's really an interesting and exciting to kind of open this back up again ago. Whoa, look what we could do again because we don't even have to dream up with. This world would look like we just have to go back in a couple of generations and lift up the rug and look at what we had and try to re create a lot of that.
Josh Robinson: 23:57
Yeah, there's again. There's so much we can be touching on there. But you mentioned the idea of resilience in in our food systems. And one of things that we often look at in permaculture is just designing as trying to create functional and integrated ecosystems, right? Yes. And we know that when we start to look at ecosystems that are highly functional, one of the traits and attributes is that they have a lot of resilience or ability to kind of handle whatever gets thrown at it. And so when we look at our food supply and our seeds as we begin to whittle those down and to just a handful, so going from 30,000 different right, he's a week to just take a few. That might all be derivatives of a single species. It sounds like that creates a very fragile food system. Correct? Correct? Yeah, like leading to things like the potato, famine, famine, right and other activities like that. But the beauty I think of what you're talking about here is we are re engaging back into that legacy that we have of planting the sea scene, what's doing really well, what's not, and saving the ones that are either better tasting or just thriving than planting those out to the next year. And that simple act for a lot of people doesn't seem like a lot or even worse while, but has this potential to kind of bring back the diversity if I'm hearing you crackly? Yeah, and I hate those new varieties.
Bill McDorman: 25:36
Yes, and you know, it's It's so parallel to permaculture. You know, when we started our seed schools, they were patterned after permit the two week primitive culture courses that what a great idea. Get people together for a couple of weeks. We do 5 to 6 state programs now, but the same sort of idea. So if it was really born out of those ideas, and so one of the things that I usually try to close our seat schools with is this idea that in 1000 years people gonna look back at this time and with the misunderstanding clear, it's eighth grade biology, right? More diversity, the more resilient your system is, the more working parts, the more you'll have parts at work, no matter what happens. And the look and you'll see this time where in our industrial age we lost 90% of the diversity and are the most essential activity providing food for ourselves and that at a time when things really started changing, I mean, that's a phenomenal place. That's where we are in the early 21st century. And so I got this. I always I tried to be an optimist, and I think somebody is going to stand up with a glass of wine from their own local grapes in their own local garden, you know, and gathering it will be a potluck dinner, whatever. And somebody will say, Hey, you know, we ought to give a toast to those people in the early 20th century who actually figured out that we were on a path to lose the remaining diversity. You know that they're patenting what's left. They're trying to make seed saving illegal in some parts of the world. I mean, there's all sorts of stuff going on, and they these people, they This is the way I usually say it is that these people look beyond the political, you know, bullshit of their time, the big screen distractions, technological distractions of their time, the religious dogmas of their time. Right And a few people woke up and said, Whoa, we better get to work. This is really important. They started a movement that actually grew back. The diversity that we now have. We now have a food system that's resilient again because that's what we need. So here's a toast. Those people in the early 21st century who actually figured out the most important thing. I mean, there's not another system that we're talking about That is as important, probably Besides Permaculture. You gotta capture your rain water you've got you know, I mean, this is what we're talking about. This is, you know, I see this tying in directly with Bill Mollison and and all the things, the beautiful things I learned in Permaculture. And what's so beautiful about it to me, which is similar to Permaculture, is that nobody from the outside can come and tell you what to do. Every place will be its own expert because you have different conditions to respond to and your seeds will be different. Nobody can bring in outside seats that are better. There's diversity all over the world and we want to bring those things in. And I would like to buy seeds and catalogs and get, you know, high on all the diversity that I see and the exciting new things. We should all do that, but let's bring as much diversity into our our arenas. We can't. But let's not forget that the most important thing is to save the seeds from the best of that and start to rebuild this foundation for a new for a new agriculture. And I woke up about a year ago after all this time and all this teaching and realized that this has to be a grassroots movement also. So I love that's like Permaculture. There's no outside authority top down that can tell you how to run your permaculture program because you have in a different place and the same is really true receipts. And if we get millions of people growing and saving their seats right where they are, then we will have a chance to recreate the diversity that we just had a couple of generations ago. And without that, we won't. And so no no institution, no top down. No government's going to save enough. There's nobody coming to help. That's why these seed libraries, I think you're so important in little communities, especially in the Mountain West. Some of those towns half the people are on food stamps, and you can imagine a major disruption to the industrial food system up. Sorry, you guys grocery stores empty, you know, three days. There's no food in the stores, there's nobody there. There's now What are we going to do? Right and somebody walks, something goes, Oh, we have a seat library. Everybody calm down. We've got enough seized to get everybody started. It's already stuff that we've been growing and saving here. So we know At least some of its, you know, adapted here in a farmer goes, Well, it's not uniform If there's garbage in there, I know there is because it's not uniformed for me to use and you go, Wow, we know that. But we got the stuff to start with. So you teach classes and how to get a uniform and will scale up quickly. And we'll all be okay. You know that sort. I'm giving you a snapshot of my view of the why all of these communities should be involved in seed saving.
Josh Robinson: 30:46
Well, hopefully by now, people are super fired up and want to start saving seeds. So for those that have never save seeds before, and they're just wanting to kind of get into that process, what are some of the ways and simple things that people can start with to kind of get their feet wet?
Bill McDorman: 31:04
Well, I would say two things first go see if you aren't already a seed. Savor Every time you have a volunteer plant, come up in your garden, you've done it. You know Greg Petersen, who's a friend of ours. The urban farm in Phoenix walked out behind his chicken coop and there was basil growing, and he's gonna wait a minute. I didn't plant Basil here. Well, he had planted it four years before, and some of it had grown up and receded itself. Grown up and receded. It's up, grown up and re seeded itself. It was four year self selected, adapted to Hot Phoenix Backyard basil. Great. You are such a spectacular seed saver. Thank you very much. You know, you didn't even know it, so look around first. Secondly, if you're going to get into seed saving, start with the easy ones. I wrote a little book in 1992 around this idea. So instead of opening up a 20 year, 25 or $30 seed saving book that starts with Latin or some of the other, you know, cult of expertise, language that is disempowering, start with the easy ones. It's really easy to save the seeds to tomatoes, peppers, peas and beans, and let us a largely self pollinating plants. It means it doesn't matter if your neighbor's air growing them. You're still probably going to get what you planted again. They're open pollinated or non hybrid. Fridays. We start with you normally again, just to make it easier. So you could kind of get a sense of the minor variations in a plant. So the ones you like better the ones that actually survive where you are. And it's really easy to save the seeds out. All of them. I mean, peas and beans are the seats. We had a lady come into the story at Native Seeds search one time, and she had, ah, yellow woman, Indian beats and that we sold them there to eat in £1 packages and she had a pact and she was buying them. And she goes, Um, can you tell me if you guys have any seeds for these beans were just laughing in your hand. You just bought a pound of him and you know So So those air easy. You know, tomatoes didn't squish him out. You can get a little more complicated. You know, my little book, basic seed saving is on Amazon, you know, with five bucks. I think your 4 65 or something. Okay, we
Josh Robinson: 33:33
can link to that. You,
Bill McDorman: 33:35
um And so you know, And there. Frankly, as somebody said to me the other day pill, they said, Probably all the instructions to save everything or on the Internet. Now, if you'll just google around and look and there's tattoos or whatever and so what's not? There is how to start, you know, first of all, that toe, open up those doors of the cult of expertise. You know, see, saving is not a big, dark, scary forest. You know, Hansel and Gretel have been here, and there are bread crumbs in, and we can find our way home. And that's what we're doing. And so basic seed saving, I always saw the little booklet is is part of that? So hopefully that helps.
Josh Robinson: 34:11
Yeah. I mean, I think it also brought up an important point that the information is out there and that can almost be overwhelming, because now it's like you have all these different people telling you that there's only one way to do it. We've all been doing this and, you know, like, honestly, what's the worst thing that could happen. If you take some seeds, you save him and you plant him out the next year. What? They don't come true to type? Well, really. But what does that mean?
Bill McDorman: 34:37
Well, yeah, as doctor killed, Deputy says, What's the worst thing that happens if you make a genetic mistake, right? It gets mast up with something or doesn't breed. True as we've been taught or what? What's the worst thing that happens as a gardener? You eat it, you still heat, you're still gardening. This is all fluff on top. Doesn't matter. And in fact, some of the greatest breakthroughs in agriculture have happened just like that. No, Waltham Butternut squash was an unknown, unwanted cross in the back of an insurance salesman in Pennsylvania in the sixties. That's how we got the world's largest selling winter squash, and it really hasn't been changed much since then. It was a mistake. The whole history of agriculture is a mistake. In some ways, nobody ever dreamed up sweet corn the way we have today. A guy bit into a cop. Ah, feel corn in 1900 out in a field and went, Wait a minute. This is different save this. I mean, we don't even have the ideas to dream up. What? We've been given a gift from agriculture. But now that we're new seat saver's, we know we can make a CZ many mistakes as we want. We're still going to eat. Um, we're here to have fun. We're doing the most important thing humans could be doing right now. We're helping to recreate, you know, a basic level of diversity, so so that we can survive for the future, you know? And now we're gonna be looking for those breakthroughs in agriculture just in case. Right. So we're gonna unleash, you know, unlimited new possibilities on us, and we're gonna switch your mind. Says we're not looking to breed true or to make things uniform. We don't have to. Gardeners don't have to do that. I think that's the biggest myth or the one that has kept most people from saving their seats. Is that And I see it this way. Is that the rules for seed saving for industrial agriculture? Our misapplied to home gardens? If you're a big farmer and you, you're depending on your crop for your dollars, it's got to be done on a certain days because the harvesters air here, you need uniformity, you need predictability. And that is complicated to get into a large populations of plants, and you have to pay attention to inbred depression and and making sure that things breed somewhat true. The there is no true in the garden I never saw true out there. You know, it's an ideal that we strive toward, but it's not there so but as much as you can, you wanted it to be uniforms so that we'll make more money. I get that butthole Gardeners have always been the ones that could experiment and let things go wild and find new things. In fact, that's our job. The smallholder farmers in the world created our agriculture. Every plant that you love from okra toe cucumbers to squash is two tomatoes, two peppers to whatever we're done largely by indigenous people. Somewhere at some point, or even, you know, modern people. For some crops, maybe only tooks 3 to 400 years in a relatively modern era to create all the sizes and shapes of pepper step. Yeah, they were taken to hyung hungry and we got paprika, and they were taken to Thailand. We got the little Thai hot sand. They were taken to India and, you know, and so so we're the ones that do that. And then later, if you need to, you can scale them up, make him uniform. You could go to the university. You can study all this stuff, that's all good stuff, you know. And we've got the Organic Seed Alliance, which has tremendous courses and on farmer breeder, you know, workshops to get you if you want to take the next stage step and and get your masters and or PhD in this sort of thing because it's it's really a beautiful and incredible career. Um, but that's not diversity. That's not fun. That's not permaculture. That's what we wanted and need to unleash. I think right now and so that's why we stay focused on that.
Josh Robinson: 38:43
And I appreciate you bringing up that perspective that, you know, for all of this time period, like all that diversity that it's been built up, wasn't coming from the university's. It wasn't coming from, you know, quote unquote educated individuals. It was coming from everybody, all just kind of rolling those genetic dice planting seeds out there and seeing what
Bill McDorman: 39:03
came from it, right? Yeah. No, you're right.
Josh Robinson: 39:07
They're taking that chili and making it, you know, into the Thai chilies or the other ones. And
Bill McDorman: 39:12
one of the story, one of the stories we tell and see that's close about James. L read who is a man who lived in Missouri and moved to Northern Illinois and brought his family. And he had a dent. Corn, no yellow dent. Corn is about a 20 roll. It's her big fat one, Really beautiful. And he brought his corn and planted it didn't grow. And his other neighbor farmers came around at the end of the earth at all. You did the same thing we did. You brought your corn up here and it doesn't work, does it? It goes, Guy just got a few. You know, this is gonna be hard, and they go, Oh, you're gonna have to grow Flint. The Flint Trump courts, it turns out, were taken way north and even into southern Canada way earlier than the other court. That's just part of its migration up from Oaxaca, its ancestral home, where it was first, you know, discovered and bread And so they said what you have to do. I mean, if you want some of your just mix it in and plant and see what happens. So that's what he did. And he got a few fume or so he taught his boys. He had four sons. How to save the seats. And for 40 years, that's what they did on the family farm. And he ended up winning the Illinois State Fair for Best Corn 40 years later, just in his field, trying to get his own corn for himself. There's no university next year when the World's Fair in Chicago about 1900. Yeah, James L. Reads Yellow Dent. Corn went on to be the best selling open pollinated corn in the world in the 20th century. Wow, that's and it came out of a family farm program. That's what every listener that you have that gets involved in saving seeds in their own backyards has a chance to change everything that way by just paying attention. That's all we're asking for. And actually that the danger isn't that you'll pay attention, the dangerous that you'll pay too much attention that you'll go down a rabbit hole and you'll get way too into this like many of the my favorite seed savers. Now, these guys were just crazy for this stuff. They just never come back. It's just so much fun and so abundant, you know, and so exciting.
Josh Robinson: 41:19
Yeah, well, some people might be listening and hearing like while that corn might be amazing, but it took 40 years of somebody like saving seed to get there. And I know that you've traveled around the world and met with different people that have been saving seeds. And and I remember hearing stories that you would tell of traveling and to the Russia region and finding things like tomatoes that can handle the cold or even watermelons that were being growing there. Do you have any stories related to those?
Bill McDorman: 41:51
Oh, I've got lots of stories about stuff like that. So I guess, you know, let me just preface what I'm saying, but I don't underestimate how quickly things can change. And don't underestimate how quickly 40 years can go by because because the James L. Read story was just been duplicated by Dave Christianson and Painted Mountain corn. You've been working on it for more than 40 years now in his own backyard in Montana, and it's now grown on all every continent and has been called the earliest fastest maturing, most nutritious, most resilient corn on the planet. And so that's just another project S O. And I knew Dave 20 years ago. Last 20 years went really fast. You know, if you're young like they say in the investing world, you've got all the marbles you could. You know, this isn't complicated. Doesn't take a lot of resource is to dio. But if you've got the time, you could really make a difference in your area. And I guess that's the other thing I would say about getting into seat saving. If it seems overwhelming, pick one plant that you're passionate about, something you love. The Igor has a story in your family, whatever your plant, and start saving scenes from that one thing first and make that your deal like Dave did with his painted mountain corn. And so, you know, that's part of the best story that I've been around. I just got to spend a couple of days with Dave up in Montana. It was just so wonderful. He lives on $9000 a year. And he has gifted the world with one of the great crops this grown everywhere. I tried to get some seeds grown for my little C company wants down in Argentina, and they were going tomatoes for me in the winter time, which was great because it's their summer and had this really neat thing, you know, because if I didn't have enough, I could get it done during the winter and that we had always have enough for my customers. And so after they were really successful, I said, Hey, can you guys do corn? And they go? No, no, no, no, no, no. We're not doing any court because corn is an out cross thing plan When pollinated s o, they didn't want anybody else's corn pollen in there because they're working on their court feel really? What kind is it? They go, Oh, it's this really great cortical painted mountain. It's the best thing we've ever found, you know so
Josh Robinson: 44:10
and they're probably taken in a different direction by saving
Bill McDorman: 44:12
really different. Yeah, and that's what should happen. That's what's always happened, you know? So Carol de Pe, Dr Carroll, deputy who taught genetics at Harvard for 25 years and wrote a really great book called Breed Your Own Backyard Garden Vegetables, Not save your own seed, but breed your own. She's a breeder. She took painted mountain corn and she's really into flavour. So she started tasting the individual kernels for flavor and found out that certain colors tasted better to her than others and started breeding for that. And so now she's got a variety of corn called Magic mantra, which is picked it mountain for flavor. It's totally different. And so, yeah, that's how it should work. And that's and I just want to make a footnote point here. We're heading into an era where more and more seats are being protected. That's the word they use around the world. They're carrying either PVP plant variety protection on them or they're actually being out right. Patent it like their new inventions, which I just don't understand. You know, 1000 years of corn breeding and then you tweet things a little bit and now you own it. I mean, it's just like this insane notion, and then more and more contract Shewell stuff that's coming from the siege by, especially if you get to a wholesale level. And all those saints want to stop seed saving and make it illegal. And if we stop seed saving than we stop that adaptation, and that stops the creation of diversity, and so that's why we're hopefully within this next year, we're going to roll out a national campaign for no patents on seeds and come up with a nuke safe seed pledge. No, the one that's out there now says, I promise not to grow or buy or sell seats to genetically modified plans. And this is going to simply say, I promise not to buy or sell the seas to plants that are utility patent. It just doesn't make sense to me, and we're trying to come up with a little logo that can be on every seat, packet and catalogue or whatever. If yours. If nothing in your catalog is patented, then that would be good, and this is important because I won't mention the catalog. But some of our favorite catalogs that sell certified organic seeds now have ah lot of utility patented seats and, in fact, 40% 42% of the lettuces in one of the new catalogues. I just saw that market gardeners, all of the United States, use these air certified organic. They're open pollinated. Let us easy to save, and now they have utility patents on them and people don't even know. And so that's why it becomes important for us to do this education about it.
Josh Robinson: 46:53
Well, let's go a little bit down that rabbit hole. So if if somebody's already growing one of these seeds, like the lettuce know that has one of the patents on there, and they were to save seeds and plant that out in their garden next year because these air typically are, especially something like lettuce is most likely an open pollinated variety. Yeah, it's going to come exactly, you know, very similar to its parents, right? What's the worst thing that could happen?
Bill McDorman: 47:20
The worst thing that could happen, You know, at this point, the worst thing that happens is that you have tacitly and um, implicitly supported an agricultural system that is taking this idea and papering over as quickly as it can. The whole third world. We're from America, and even organic farmers are buying and using utility patented seat so It must be OK, you know. And for me, that's heartbreaking. Organic was supposed to mean we were doing the right thing. And I was just in Rome at an international conference. And there are hundreds of millions. The smallholder farmers that are being sold a bill of goods are the basic story coming out of the United States and industrial agriculture and the big gene giants. The big C company's is that you need to privatize seeds. They need to be protected in order for there to be innovation. We're here to help you. Well, and so I you know, I showed up in an international conference from the United States, which turned a lot of heads. We did on Belle M. And Leon Hill, our program director, And it was like, Oh, you're on our side the small holder farmer side of things. It took quite a while to get used to that idea because basically, that's not the site we take internationally around these kinds of issues. And it just became really clear to me. You know, when I say that we should not use utility patent it, see, it's I'm I I can feel those 300 million farmers standing behind me, saying, Don't do this, you know, I think 60% of the countries in Africa are, um, honoring the patents and utility on utility patented seeds or other kinds of contractual protections, even though the W T o the original trade agreements that got them into all this whole thing allow a farmer's exemption for them to save their own seeds. You know, farmers have always had the right just to save their own seeds. For obvious reasons. It starts that adaptation and diversity that's going on, and it's only with that, really, with utility patents coming out of the United States the most restrictive intellectual property ever allowed on plants. And it was it's not legislation. It was just a Supreme Court case the Clarence Thomas ruled in and he had been a former attorney for Monsanto. If you just kind of went the whole back story of how this is happening and so you know, so come back to it depends on where you are or what you're thinking, what you want to do with your life. So I'm in a non profit. So what I would say is that be aware that you're not supposed to save the seats to your utility patent. You're not even supposed to allow that leads to go to sea. Why they have total and complete control over the reproduction of it. You know, that's the law. Okay. In India, Montana Shiva organized 10,000 farmers around patented rice, and they all grow. And then they all passed it out in their own communities. And then they are mailed in 10,000 postcards to Monsanto, saying, Thank you very much. We're all growing this beautiful, wonderful rice, and we're sharing it as truly as we can. And they dropped the bat. Frankly, they probably don't have an enforcement techniques where the worst thing that could happen. Another potential worst thing is that when we and I so I wasn't part of it. My white belt was on a committee with the American Association of Cede Control officials after ah seed library and Pennsylvania was shut down because it didn't have a commercial license. I don't know if you heard this story is through the years ago. Yeah, just doctors. Uncle, who is the C control official for Pennsylvania, came home from dinner when I looked up on the TV and there was the opening of a new seed library in his town. And we're giving away seeds and it's free to check them out. And he's going, Wait a minute. I'm the seed control official for the state of Pennsylvania. I didn't authorize that What's going on here? So he went down and close him down. He said, You don't have a license. You didn't do any germ test. You can't prove that they breed. True, he went through all the commercial rules to sell seeds in Pennsylvania. The argument started a seed like there's not a commercial seat over operation. Well, people getting their seats there, you know? And it took him about a year and Belle was on the committee, actually, And Reese, an agreement. It's okay to have seed. Like growers and the American Association of C Control officials actually pass an amendment to what they call their recommended uniform state seed loss That says seed libraries, Okay, they don't have to have commercial licenses. They don't fall under the same umbrella with two conditions. No noxious weeds can be found in there. And no patented seeds. Your library so your friend might grow and say their seats they love nobody even know, you know, even knew that they were patented. To begin with, they get passed around and a seat exchange or whatever they end up in your local seed library in a 42% of the lettuces and one of the most popular catalogues in the country are patented. How long before a bunch of them are in there and in walks? A C control official. That's my fear. You don't even wanna, you know. And so, frankly, what we've been trying to do is write and ask for lists. Every year I write to all the sea companies and say I need a list of all the varieties that you sell that air patented. And guess what? None of them supply a list of this point.
Josh Robinson: 52:58
Oh, so you don't like to
Bill McDorman: 53:00
go? We don't even know. In some case, that I found mismarked once. If you go to the U. S. Trade and patent and Trade Office Ah, website and search for variety names. Ah, third of them don't come up because they weren't patented for their variety names. Their patented for a disease resistance or heat tolerance in brassicas was packed the other day, a purple in lettuce was patented. This is where we're
Josh Robinson: 53:27
kind of ridiculous. So is that leading down to say, if you grow a brassica that is heat resistant now that potentially has that gene in there that you're now breaking the law? Is that how that
Bill McDorman: 53:39
well, so here's what happens if they would have to enforce it. And you know the realistically probably nobody will unless it gets to a commercial level. If you're a breeder and you come up with a new variety and it's got that specific trait and you start competing with them in the marketplace, then they would have a financial incentive to do that. But, yeah, theoretically, it ISS. And And if you're thinking about seat running a seed library where the at least the the rules are no patented seats, it would seem as though that would be important. So, you know, our campaign about no patents on seeds is largely about education. You know, I don't I personally feel like I should get in the way of anybody buying seats if you want to buy patented seeds and use them and you really like him. That's, you know, go for it. But I want companies themselves and organizations that educate about seats to all be open, honest and transparent about it is what we're gonna do. Let's all know what we're doing. And let's let consumers decide whether they want to be part and parcel of that kind of a system. Because the private, dizzy Shin of seeds for me is just doesn't work. And in an era where we're seeing so much change around sexual rights, you know, and and Rachel awakening and then especially cultural awakening with indigenous peoples I mean, how can you deal with indigenous peoples with integrity and say, We own these seats? You just can't You can't you know. It's largely indigenous women, as Dr Navin used to say, are the ones that did all the work. 238 generations from corn. You know, they came out of wacha that's fed every civilization on our continent. You know that work was done, and so now we can on it. I mean, you want to talk about de colonizing? Let's just get rid of that that one first. That's my That's my thing. Something
Josh Robinson: 55:40
a lofty goal for sure.
Bill McDorman: 55:43
Well, you know, but not impossible. In fact, practical and necessary, I would say,
Josh Robinson: 55:49
Yeah. I mean, I think that I think you've made a very important case for like, Hey, we need to get back out there, start saving our seats, creating the seeds that are gonna drive in our local communities. And along that line, you also brought up this idea of seed libraries and for people that are new to that concept, you just define what you mean by a seed library.
Bill McDorman: 56:09
See, libraries got started in the United States. It's a uniquely US concept, some form of a community getting together and sharing seeds and saving them together is in every part of the world. And so some in some community that column community seed banks in other places, they're they're actually small, see, cos you know. But we have libraries in this country. Thank you, Carnegie, you know, and the idea that you would have a place where people could go in and check out their seats. That way they would a book. And the idea is that if and when you can, you learn how to grow them, save some seats and check in twice as many. And in that way you can grow a community and public resource with this function somewhat the same way as an annual seat exchange might. And I know a lot of areas have those now. And so, like once a year, there's a big potluck dinner party or whatever, and people all come together and they talk to each other and exchange seats. And that's really the best, because you get to talk to people and there's information that shades. But if you moved to town the day after the seed exchange, you have to wait till the next year. So a seed library becomes a place where you can go and people can go in all year long and do this. That's really all it ISS and every seed libraries different if you're thinking about starting one or one toe, tap in and find out where they are. Seed libraries dot net the best Web source for that sort of thing. They've got a listing of the 600 sister seed libraries around the world. People try to keep that up. Wow, Rebecca Newburn, who's a great permaculture wrist, is still in charge with that. And it's just a great resource that the right amount seat alliance. We have a directory with our software so people can list their seed library on it and and what they specialize in or if they have needs or whatever. And then anyone else that comes store are so I can pull up a map, see where they all are, and click on one and get all the information and connect with those people directly. And we have 82. See, libraries have come out of nowhere into the Rocky Mountain West, just in the lifeboats on there the other day, and I just keeps growing. And so wow, this is really powerful, You know that that there was one in Wyoming and then there was another one. And then those two are helping the 3rd 1 that just popped up, and you can kind of see how this works.
Josh Robinson: 58:29
Incredible. So it's really just decentralizing the seed system and bring it back to the people,
Bill McDorman: 58:36
keeping it in the comments this we've been talking about, so don't underestimate how powerful this could be. We helped start a seed library when we were at Native Seeds Search in Tucson, the Pima County Library. A lot of these seed libraries air now in libraries, which is kind of a natural fit. And it turns out the old card catalogs they were throwing away because they're all going. Computers fit seed packets perfectly. So this transition has been made. But Pima County now has 11 seed libraries in their 22 branches throughout Southern Arizona. Well, for 50% they're all hooked. With inter library loan. You can go into any branch, pull up all the brightest on the computer. They will deliver them to your library if you don't have a seat library there. Wow. It was three years ago. They had checked out 20,000 packets. That was the last. You know, I've heard. Now that's over 50,000 packets a year are being checked out of the Pima County Library. And half they finally crossed the threshold. It took a number of years, but half are being checked back in Wow, half the varieties. And so you moved to tooth. Son, you want to figure out what's going on? Go down to the library. Check out Mrs Burns. Lemon basil was brought to Tucson in 18 98. Bye bye, Knee burns mother, her grandmother. And it's still being grown in the alleys and up and down through Tucson's weather. You know, when
Josh Robinson: 1:0:03
I lived in Tucson, that was one of my favorite Basil
Bill McDorman: 1:0:05
is to grow. Yeah, There you go. Eso anyway, on giving you kind of, you know, if you move to a new town now, there's a whole other kind of resource for you to tap into and get seeds and information and a built in community. And that's that's nice. That's what we're gonna need.
Josh Robinson: 1:0:23
Yeah, Well, thank you, Bill. Um, just on. Kind of like our final thoughts here. If people are interested in learning more about seed saving some of the work that you do, Where can people find you?
Bill McDorman: 1:0:34
Rocky Mountain Seeds dot or GE Rocky, Rocky Mount Seed Alliance dot Or go home. We have an educational program coming up in May. We're calling at the seed and grain experience in the Jimi Hendrix sense. Are you experienced? We've got some really high level teachers lined up. It's at a geothermal hot springs permaculture site that is being prepared for us. We're gonna have our own hot and cold running water falls to soak in. We'll have smoke breaks, you know it will be a five day program and we'll live on site and all the meals will be fresh, local organic food. And so that's, you know, kind of. I'm giving you a sense of how we're evolving. We do, Ah, one day seed schools in a day and have in the past. You know, we go where we're pulled, sort of. They've got a kind of fit. We need a organizations that really wanna have us, and we'll help sponsor us. And we need press, forget local food if we're going to do a day long program. And so you know, that's really the best we've got our seed school online. You can get to that through our website also. And that's Greg Petersen. Our mutual friend of ours does those through the urban farm. Once a month, I do a podcast, a C chat podcast through the urban farm podcast. So you can, uh, check that out with the one we just did was on C catalogues. I got a really lively discussion about seed catalogs and learned a lot. And that will be up it will probably be taken about three weeks before that shows up. It's a podcast. So look for that.
Josh Robinson: 1:2:01
Great. And I could definitely vouch for all of those. I listen to your monthly podcast there with Greg and always get a lot out of it. Ah, the seed schools have been fantastic. I remember when you started that up in Arizona, but 10 plus years ago.
Bill McDorman: 1:2:17
Yeah. That first. Yeah, yeah. No, you're you know, And you've always been important to me and what you've done and how you've stayed dedicated. And I love that you're doing this now with the education. This is the important part is getting these words out. So thank you for what you're doing. Well,
Josh Robinson: 1:2:33
thank you, Bill. I mean, you've always been just a huge inspiration and what I do and keeping that that spirit alive and the optimism because, you know, with the challenging times that we've been in, it's always just I mean, so depressing when you turn on the news and read story after story of just nothing but negative. Yeah. Yeah. Then when we start to look at, like the possibility whether, you know, we're talking about seeds today, and last time we had a conversation here with Bradley and Castor talking about water, it's like there's my potential. We all have this ingrained in us that we can get out there and do it. Yes, I love that you have been promoting this for for so long And, you know, getting so many people fired up on seeds.
Bill McDorman: 1:3:21
Well, if you're depressed, you're just not playing with them enough
Josh Robinson: 1:3:26
true words to live by right there. Yeah.
Bill McDorman: 1:3:28
Yeah. No, I just thought of that, like, you know, I just think about how much fun I've been having. And that's what I'm doing is more and more. I'm coming home to girl, my own court. It's just, you know, it's my bath now. I just love what? It teaches me every day. So,
Josh Robinson: 1:3:42
yeah, there's a lot to be learned there. Yeah, so thank you. And the pope to have you on the show sometime in the future.
Bill McDorman: 1:3:48
Any time