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Today, we continue our interview with Will Bonsall, who founded the Scatterseed Project over 40 years ago. “So, I got that and several other things that he had, and I became aware that there’s a whole world of variety, of genetic diversity, that’s not, quote, ‘on the shelf,’ that people have in their houses, in their seed drawer.” Presently, the Scatterseed Project actively collects, preserves, and distributes thousands of crop varieties, including many that are rare or endangered. As global agriculture became more industrialized and food production shifted away from local farms and backyard gardens, most heritage varieties were lost.“Because all of the big, large-scale agriculture, with whatever advantages it has of big machinery and all the chemicals and support systems, it’s not sustainable enough, particularly with the conditions, including global warming, all the conditions that are confronting us. So, the resilience of small farmers and gardeners, even backyard gardeners, have a real role to play in this because they give us more options, more survival options, having more things.”Mr. Bonsall offers his advice for anyone interested in starting their own self-reliant garden. “Look at your diet. Saving seeds of the things that you and your family are used to eating. And particularly those things that cost the most to replace: tomatoes, salad things. Potatoes, for the amount of space involved, can give you quite a lot of relatively staple food and with relatively little effort. Start with getting your land itself. Learn how.”
