Food Heroes: Matthew Dillon, Seed Guy

It all goes back to growing up on his family's small farm in Nebraska just outside of Omaha. That four-acre farm, which his family called a "hobby farm," was where the Dillon family raised vegetables and kept a few cattle. Young Matthew and his siblings would harvest the vegetables from the fields, then carry them up and down the road that ran in front of their house that cut through the heart of Nebraska's rich agricultural land, selling armloads of the crops to their neighbors.

Matthew was a smart kid, and his boredom with school, which he refers to as "an 1890’s model of education," caused him to get a reputation as a rabble-rouser. "I’d definitely gotten in trouble for vandalism, smoking pot and all those things," he said. "That’s why I was getting in trouble—because I wasn’t challenged. I was totally bored."

Mount Michael Benedictine School.

So his parents plucked him out of public school and sent him to a nearby boarding school called Mount Michael Benedictine School. "It was competitive to get in, you had to start as a freshman, he said. "100 percent of students going off to college, 90 percent on scholarships, highest ACT and SAT scores in the state."

The monks also had a three-acre organic farm.

But compared to the vegetables his family grew, "the carrots and the produce were pretty crappy looking," he remembers thinking. "I guess this is good for the planet, but it doesn’t look very edible."

After graduating from Mount Michael, Dillon went to the University of California, studying the evolution of human consciousness through a special outdoor wilderness program on the impacts of the human psyche on ecosystems.

Then his father got sick. Cancer.

"He'd had an agricultural supply business, everything from veterinary health supplies to pesticides, you name it, the whole kit and caboodle," Dillon said.

Matthew dropped out of school to help his mother take care of his dad and worked to help pay the family's bills.

Platte River Valley in Nebraska.

"My dad was so healthy. Why is he, of all people, getting non-Hodgkins lymphoma?" he asked himself. "I started looking into it, and the Platte River Valley of Nebraska has this insanely high rate of non-Hodgkins lymphoma because of nitrates in the wells [from] pesticide runoff."

Dillon's father died shortly thereafter, and it began to dawn on him that the pesticides his father sold and that all the farmers in the area used might have contributed to not only his dad's disease, but to his own serious illness at the age of 12, eventually diagnosed as an endocrine disruption and after which he never grew again.

He became intrigued with agriculture. He got a job working on urban garden projects in and around Omaha, plus a side business running an electronics smuggling operation in Russia (read more about that here).

Working on the garden projects, "I realized that the only way I was going to be close to my dad again was if I started growing food," Dillon said. "The thing that he loved the most was that hobby farm. He liked that more than the business. He just liked growing food, he liked making food, [and] it became really clear to me that I needed to go and get my hands in the soil."

Touring a field study for the OSA.

An internship at an 18-acre organic farm in California's Anderson Valley introduced Dillon to an integrated approach to agriculture, where everything was different from the practices his family had used in Nebraska. But one thing struck him as odd: the seed on the organic farm came from the same sources as the seed that the conventional growers used back home.

"All of the inputs are different, our approach to caring for the soil is different, but the seed was the same," he said. Other than some heirloom seed from the Abundant Life Seed Foundation and the Seed Savers Exchange, which he said was beautiful but not agronomically strong, the bulk of the farm's seed came from conventional sources.

"Why is that?" Dillon wondered. "Where’s the organic seed?"

"So I got kind of obsessed, as I do, about the concept that you breed for the environment of intended use, and you breed for the management system of intended use," he said. "Organic environments and organic management systems were different."

That line of inquiry sent him up to Port Townsend, Washington, to the headquarters of Abundant Life, where he volunteered almost full time, eventually landing a spot on their board of directors. Having lost its executive director, the board asked Dillon to take the position as interim director, which led to his accepting the position of executive director.

And that's when the fire hit. A story in the Capital Press from August 8, 2003, summarized the damage:

"An early Monday morning fire in Port Townsend, Washington, that destroyed a landmark building, home to the oldest grocery store in the state, also destroyed Abundant Life Seed Foundation’s office, its extensive library and thousands of its seeds—hundreds of which were one-of-a-kind varieties. Matthew Dillon, executive director of the foundation, describes it as the loss of 29 years of collecting and stewarding germ plasm."

Reflecting on the effect of the devastating loss almost 15 years later, Dillon is sanguine.

At Wild Garden Seed in Philomath.

"By that time I’d met [Dr. John] Navazio and [Wild Garden Seed's Frank] Morton," he said. "All these guys who were saying, yeah, heirlooms are great and everything, but we can have the best heirlooms and we can start breeding in disease resistance and making these crops more workhorses and more robust. And that just intrigued me."

Dillon and the plant breeders and contract growers at Abundant Life had already started to improve some of the heirloom varieties, but their work wasn't without controversy, even within the organic community.

"We’d get angry letters, like 'how dare you not save the seed just as it is, how dare you make a cross or how dare you make a selection!'" he said, shaking his head. "It was intense.

"The whole thing was that heirlooms are not like these gifts handed down by the gods from Olympus to our grandparents. They evolved with those practices, intentionally or not."

Dillon feels that, in general, agricultural history hasn’t given credit to the farmer innovator, saying that farmers and gardeners have always riffed on what they find in their gardens and made selections based on their own preferences. He believes that's where we got the diversity of the heirloom and heritage seed that we find in catalogs and garden stores today.

"Our whole thing was the heirlooms of tomorrow," he said. "That’s all we were doing. In the long run, obviously, a lot of folks have embraced that and it’s become the focus of the alternative seed movement, going beyond heirlooms, still respecting conservation and the need for conservation."

Clif Bar Seed Matters initiative.

Out of the literal ashes of Abundant Life, Dillon founded the Organic Seed Alliance (OSA) with Navazio, a renowned plant geneticist, agroecologist, author and organic seed production specialist. With a belief that seed is part of our common cultural heritage—a living, natural resource that demands careful management to meet food needs now and into the future—the OSA's mission was to support the growing organic seed movement and advance what it calls "ethical seed solutions" to meet food and farming needs in a changing world.

Under Dillon's leadership the OSA educated thousands of farmers and other agricultural community members, conducted professional organic plant breeding and seed production research, and advocated for national policies strengthening organic seed systems.

But, as Dillon said, "I'm not a manager, I'm a start-up guy." Once the OSA was humming along with great people like Navazio, Micaela Colley, Kiki Hubbard and others in place, he said, "I was like, I’m done. I’m ready for something new."

In the field.

That new, shiny thing came in the unexpected form of a job with a candy bar—or what these days is called an "energy bar"—company, Clif Bar. After leaving OSA, Dillon did some consulting, and the Clif Bar Family Foundation was one of his first clients. He found it intriguing because, though only about 70 percent of the ingredients in Clif Bar products were organic, its founders, Gary Erickson and Kit Crawford, wanted to figure out how to get more organics into the system, which meant scaling up the growing organic industry, starting with seed.

"I would tell them things like, the organic movement needs to stop marketing ourselves as being grandma and grandpa’s farm and going back a hundred years," he said. "We’re not going back. We’re using the best scientific principles and practices for our production system to figure out how to move our production system forward. To do that you have to give the farmers better tools, you have to understand cover cropping better, you have to understand soil management better, there’s all of this investment you need to make."

Rather than taking the tack of much of the organic movement, like making investments in fighting GMOs and GMO labeling, Dillon's experience told him that not enough investment was being made in agricultural research. His mission from that point on was clear. "Let’s start with seed," he said. "Let’s focus on a seed initiative that improves organic seed, and then let’s see where we can go from there."

He began his work at the foundation in 2009 by founding the company's Seed Matters initiative, with a mission to improve the viability and availability of organic seed to provide more nutritious and productive crops. It would do this by conserving crop genetic diversity, promoting farmers’ roles as seed innovators and stewards, and by reinvigorating public seed research and education. It meant working with farmers, educators, researchers, nonprofits, public universities, community gardeners and seed advocates, as well as establishing graduate fellowships for students to enter the field of organic plant breeding.

A chance to move over to the company and effect what he perceives of as systemic change has placed Dillon in a critical role, as Clif Bar's Director of Agricultural Policy and Programs. For Clif Bar, he said, it was a question of looking at their agricultural supply chain, then figuring out how to make investments that will be good for their farmers but also be good for the company.

Again, for Dillon it goes back to his upbringing in the Midwest in the 1970s.

"What I love about [Clif Bar] is, you hear about companies that are triple bottom lines; Clif Bar was this five bottom line," he said. "They have people, planet, community, business and brands, and agriculture they put under community aspiration, and to me that was really cool.

"As a kid growing up in a rural community, I’d seen the farm crisis in Nebraska in the late 70s—farmers' suicides, consolidation. All of that was alive and crushingly apparent in my community. I was watching people lose farms, family members and friends losing farms in the late seventies and early eighties. So, to me, it was the idea that big ag comes in and extracts value out of communities. It’s systemic."

While Dillon openly admits that Clif Bar is far from perfect, he said that they know they have work to do.

"Because the question of any food company should be, how do our decisions either add value to communities, make communities more robust and healthy and resilient, or how do they detract from that?" he said.

Photo of Dillon at Wild Garden Seed by Shawn Linehan.

"Eating is an Agricultural Act."

This past week I was invited to give a short, eight-minute talk about Portland's food scene to a gathering, called an "incubator," of project leaders from EcoDistricts, a Portland-based nonprofit supporting projects that make cities more sustainable. These were folks from around the country, with one crew from New Zealand, many of whom had never been to Oregon before. They asked me to cover "Portland's food, wine, craft beer and spirits culture and industry." With a nod to a former creative director of mine, I opted "to give them what they want, just not what they expect."

When you hear a mention of Portland’s food scene, I’m guessing what comes to mind are its booming restaurants, with tatted-up chef-dudes in sideways trucker hats putting bacon and foie gras into every course, including dessert. You might also be (justifiably) excited about the city’s much-touted cocktail culture, with bartenders vying for who’s the baddest in the land, shaking cocktails made from local spirits, with a lineup of housemade bitters and syrups displayed on the bar.

So I don’t mean to disappoint you, but that’s not the food scene I’m going to be talking about today. The food scene I’m interested in, and the one that I write about on my blog, Good Stuff NW, is the one that happens in the fields and rivers and in the ocean.

Carol and Anthony Boutard.

It’s the not-very-sexy but incredibly important story of how the harvest from those places gets to my plate.

It’s the story of farmers like Carol and Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm, transplants from Western Massachusetts who, after settling in Portland and working on land use issues for decades, decided, at the age of 50, to buy 140 acres of fields, oak savannah and wetland west of the city to start an organic farm. In the decade-plus that they’ve been farming, they’ve become known for the quality of their corn, an old New England variety that they’ve adapted to the growing conditions here in the Northwest, which they hand-shell and grind into polenta and dry to make popcorn. Then there are their Astiana tomatoes, named for the area of the Piedmont in Italy where they first tasted them and where Carol—legend has it—was so enamored of their flavor that she went dumpster-diving in the restaurant’s garbage to salvage a handful of seeds to bring back to their farm.

All of their hard work selecting seeds year after year is in pursuit of better flavor, and it shows in the legions of their loyal customers who can’t get enough of their dried beans, a South Asian green called fenugreek (that growing in the fields smells just like maple syrup), Italian chicories, garlic and other crops.

Ivan Maluski and Kendra Kimbirauskas.

This same dedication to soil and the health of the land—which also happens to result in incredibly flavorful food—is evident in the way that Kendra Kimbirauskas and her husband, Ivan Maluski, of Shimanek Bridge Farm in Scio raise their pigs, goats and chickens. A small-scale operation, they reject the confined, factory farm conditions and antibiotic-laden diets that most of America’s meat is raised in, raising all of their animals on pasture in a system called rotational grazing, where the animals are moved from one section to another in sequence and the pastures are allowed to regrow before the next group of animals is moved onto it.

I recently bought half a pig from them and, with help, butchered it—an incredibly budget-friendly way to get a year’s supply of meat—and I can tell you that there is nothing as beautiful as the fat from a well-raised animal. Its flavor is clean and rich, offering more "good" fats and fewer "bad" fats. The meat is richer in antioxidants; including vitamins E, beta-carotene, and vitamin C and it doesn’t have traces of added hormones, antibiotics or other drugs.

Tasting carrots at the Culinary Breeding Network Variety Showcase.

And since we’re on the subject of the pursuit of flavor, Lane Selman, an agricultural researcher at Oregon State University, has started an innovative program called the Culinary Breeding Network, bringing together plant breeders, seed growers, fresh market farmers, chefs and produce buyers to talk about how to make our food more delicious. (Imagine that.)

Historically these various groups have had widely divergent agendas in developing the crops that we find in the produce section at the store or on our plates at a restaurant. Plant breeders and seed growers looked for germination rates, vigorousness of growth and consistency of product. Fresh market farmers and produce buyers wanted big yields, durability in shipping and shelf life. Chefs and home cooks wanted flavor and beauty on the plate.

So Lane’s effort, supported by OSU and the Organic Seed Alliance, has been to bring all these groups together to talk about how to grow food—using traditional plant breeding processes (think Mendel’s peas)—that will be profitable to grow and sell while not sacrificing flavor. Currently there are field trials happening on regional farms for sweeter carrots, amazing varieties of parsley that can taste minty or savory rather than cardboard-y, squashes of all descriptions, greens, a variety of purple broccoli, and a habanero pepper that has no heat but keeps an incredibly sweet, deep undertone.

School tour at Zenger Farm.

Like many larger cities across the country, there’s also a vital urban agriculture scene in Portland that includes 51 community gardens covering more than 20 acres in the city, with more than 70 acres of land under cultivation commercially. In sizes ranging from small residential lots to larger plots of an acre or more and supporting themselves through CSA ( or community-supported agriculture) subscriptions, farmers’ market stands, restaurant clients, classes and even pop-up dinner events onsite, these small businesses are sought out by city folk like me anxious to support these entrepreneurial efforts.

And speaking of farmers’ markets, our metro area supports more than 60 farmers’ markets during the height of the season from June through September, with a dozen that continue through the winter months. Since I understand that some of you work on projects that address food access, I wanted to mention that in addition to the Oregon Food Bank, which has a network of 17 regional food banks and 960 partner agencies that serve 900,000 people a year, as well as education classes and community food system training, there is the Farmers Market Fund, recently awarded a-half-million dollar grant from the USDA for a program called Double Up Food Bucks. It is a SNAP (which used to be called food stamps) incentive program that offers farmers’ market vouchers for low-income families. These vouchers are available at 50 farmers markets across the state, giving a dollar-for-dollar match—up to $10—to purchase fruits and vegetables. The Fund also provides funds up to $200 to help purchase CSA shares from area farms.

SNAP and regular farmers' market tokens.

One of the best things about the SNAP benefits offered at farmers’ markets, at least to my mind, is that when someone uses their SNAP debit card to get tokens that they can then use like cash at market stalls, the tokens they get are barely distinguishable from non-SNAP tokens of other customers, eliminating the issues of shame and embarrassment that many low-income people often have to endure.

The poet, author, environmental activist, cultural critic and farmer, Wendell Berry, said that “eating is an agricultural act.”

I couldn’t agree more.

New Kid on the Block: Purple Sprouting Broccoli

It's known among veg-heads as PSB, and it's the new darling of chefs looking for unusual vegetables to tempt their customers. Purple sprouting broccoli, which is planted in midsummer and must overwinter prior to harvest in early spring, is also getting noticed by farmers who want to expand their roster of early season produce during the time of year known as the "hunger gap"—between the end of storage crops like squash and root vegetables and the appearance of early spring vegetables.

A field trial of purple sprouting broccoli.

It came about because the Organic Seed Alliance (OSA) wanted to develop an organic variety of purple sprouting broccoli and partnered with the Organically Grown Company, one of the Northwest's largest organic produce distributors. Over two years, the OSA tested nine varieties of the new broccoli on sites in Oregon and Washington—called "breeding trials" in ag-speak—and held taste tests with farmers, retailers and chefs before choosing the winner to be distributed to seed companies.

In an article in the OSA's spring newsletter, writer Margarett Waterbury writes that "its deep, saturated purple coloration—which signals the presence of antioxidant-rich anthocyanins—feels almost as nourishing to the eyes as the body. A study at the Liverpool John Moores University School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences found that raw purple sprouting broccoli has an antioxidant content nearly 38% greater than raw green broccoli."

In her article, Waterbury included a recipe from one of my favorite chefs, Tim Wastell of Sweedeedee, for a roasted broccoli and radish dish that was rated as swoon-worthy by my testers here at home. The dressing is worth making a double batch, since it'd also make a great dip for raw vegetables, where the broccoli would particularly shine—unfortunately, like the purple variety of string beans, it turns green when cooked.

Cashew-Miso Roasted Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Radishes
Adapted from a recipe by Chef Tim Wastell

16 oz. purple sprouting broccoli (PSB)
1 bunch spicy radishes
2 oz. white miso paste
2 oz. lightly toasted cashews
2 oz. good maple syrup
1 oz. unseasoned rice wine vinegar
1 large lime
High quality flake sea salt such as Jacobsen or Maldon
Fresh cracked black pepper

Make the cashew miso paste by combining the cashews and miso paste. Work with a mortar and pestle until smooth or simply put ingredients in a blender and blend on medium. Add the maple syrup, rice vinegar and juice of half of the lime and continue to mix until homogenous. Thin out a bit with cold water if necessary; the texture should be akin to that of tahini paste. Set aside or store in refrigerator for up to a week.

Wash, dry and trim the PSB into long skinny pieces, leaving florets as intact as possible; transfer to mixing bowl.

Wash and dry the radishes if necessary. Cut 3/4 of them through the stem into quarters, leaving the best-looking leaves as attached as possible and add to the mixing bowl. Thinly slice the remaining radishes on a mandolin and set aside in a small container of ice water.

Set oven to high broil setting. Dress the PSB and quartered radishes with the cashew miso paste and arrange on a parchment-lined, oven-safe tray. Broil until lightly charred, about three or four minutes. Transfer to a serving dish, arrange sliced radishes on top and finish with flake salt and juice of the remaining half lime. Serves 4.

Photos from the Organic Seed Alliance.

Missing the Mark on Molecular Breeding

Dr. John Navazio, a senior scientist with the Organic Seed Alliance and Organic Seed Research & Extension Specialist at Washington State University, is one of the nation's premier experts on plant breeding and seed production. I felt his comments on a widely circulated article in the Washington Post deserved reposting.

Re-posted from Organic Seed Alliance’s Seed Broadcast blog.

By Dr. John Navazio.

A recent Washington Post article by Adrian Higgins, titled “Trait by trait, plant scientists swiftly weed out bad seeds through marker-assisted breeding” (April 16, 2014), overstates the potential of marker-assisted selection (a molecular plant breeding method) and makes the dubious claim that it’s the most promising plant breeding method available today.

We agree that marker-assisted selection (MAS) has a role in crop improvement and has helped breeders for a quarter century understand the relationship between genes and plant traits. It is good basic research. But MAS is just one tool in a plant breeder’s toolbox, with clear limitations, which the article largely dismissed.

Amid this rush to the “trendy sphere of molecular breeding,” as Mr. Higgins put it, we are seeing a troubling de-emphasis on, and de-funding of, classical plant breeding that produces dynamic, genetically resilient crops across diverse—and changing—agricultural environments.

If the past century of agriculture has taught us anything, it’s that there are no silver-bullet solutions to complex problems, MAS included. The danger with this centralized, one-size-fits-all breeding approach is that it results in diminishing crop diversity, as well as the diversity of breeders representing different interests in creatively solving agricultural challenges at the regional level. These are the concerns voiced by Drs. Goodman and Tracy, two of today’s preeminent breeding theorists, who were given short shrift in Mr. Higgins’ article. In 2013, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations echoed this need for increased genetic diversity and decentralized breeding in creating the agricultural ecosystems of the future, while admonishing the “business-as-usual mindset.”

Classical breeding, rooted in field-based selection for the subtleties of a plant’s genetic response to environmental change, has proven to be highly effective for many traits that are more complex than can be discerned in a lab. Field-based selection can be practiced with limited resources and precision. Yet fewer funds are being directed to these breeding programs at our public institutions that for decades have delivered regionally adapted plant varieties to farmers and trained the next generation of breeders. We need to reprioritize classical breeding to help address our most pressing 21st century food and agriculture needs.

Photo at top from the Organic Seed Alliance blog.

Not So Cheery Os

Last week, General Mills announced that it had stopped sourcing bioengineered corn starch and beet sugar for its original Cheerios. Many consumer advocates lauded the decision, some going so far as to hail it as the beginning of the end of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) altogether. Others, including Matt Dillon, former Executive Director and cofounder of Organic Seed Alliance, said all the celebrating might be premature. The following is an edited version of his post on Facebook.

I'm seeing all this celebration about Cheerios’ decision to source non-GMO corn starch and sourcing cane instead of beet sugar. For instance, people and organizations admired as leaders in the food and farming movement are saying that we should encourage people to buy Cheerios to show General Mills that we appreciate their change in ingredients.

Let’s hold on a second and do a reality check.

Our alternative food and farming movement was founded on the premise that the industrial/conventional/chemical/commodity food machine was unhealthy for people and for the planet. Non-GMO food (that isn’t also organic) is the same old conventional/chemical/exploitative food, both socially and ecologically.

So are these people celebrating Cheerios now saying that the horrendous food and horrendous practices—that for 40-plus years the alternative movement has tried to change—are now acceptable?

A decade ago we were focused on eliminating toxic pesticides from farming. Today we are fine with it, as long as it isn't GMO production. This is two steps backward—into insanity.

Yes, it can be spun as, "Well, General Mills is taking a step in the right direction."

No, they are not. They are eliminating two minor ingredients in one of their many brands. What would be worthy of celebrating is General Mills saying, "We will not buy crops grown with atrazine, 2 4d or methyl iodide. We will not sow corn seed coated in neocotonoids that impact bees. We will not use organophosphate and carbamate insecticides that are deadly to wildlife."

But labeling one brand of cereal as "non-GMO" doesn’t address this. In fact, non-GMO (no matter if it has a label or not) uses all of these harmful practices.

Want to really do something as a consumer? Don't buy products that are trying to give themselves a green halo for sticking a non-GMO label on their package if they aren't at least in transition to organic. Stop letting conventional companies steal "sustainable" dollars from organic farmers who do the real work of sustainability, and reject these straw man labels.

Top photo by Becky Hansmeyer from Flickr.

Great Gifting: The Gift of a Better Community

Most of us are swimming or, more likely, drowning, in stuff. We don't need another gadget or doodad or gewgaw. But gift certificates seem so "Whatever." Like we couldn't think of anything else but had to put something under the tree, and surely they can find a gift at that giant online retailer that has everything from books to toys to tools to…well…you know which store I'm talking about.

Zenger Farm.

If you're stuck for a last-minute present and dread fighting the hordes that seem to find the Battle of the Last Minute a thrill, then might I suggest giving a gift that will warm the heart and do some good in the community (and/or the world). And that's giving a gift to an organization or effort in the name of your giftee.

Friends of Family Farmers.

There are plenty of national and international groups that are highly rated by Charity Watch, a nonprofit that gives charities a letter grade based on their practices and the percentage of donation dollars that go directly to programs (rather than executives' salaries). But if you want to do some good right here at home, below you'll find a few organizations that are working hard to make the Northwest a better place to live.

Zenger Farm. A working urban farm that models, promotes and educates about sustainable food systems, environmental stewardship, community development and access to good food for all. Working to build an Urban Grange, a hub for healthy food and community connection, right here in the city.

Friends of Family Farmers. A grassroots organization promoting sensible policies, programs and regulations that protect and expand the ability of Oregon’s family farmers to run a successful land-based enterprise while providing safe and nutritious food for all Oregonians through education, advocacy, and community organizing.

Farmers Market Fund. Providing low-income, elderly and under-served populations throughout the region increased access to fresh, locally grown food. Administers Fresh Exchange, a money matching program for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients, also known as food stamps.

The Portland Kitchen. Offers free, comprehensive culinary after-school and summer programming for Portland high school youth, age 14-18. Its mission is to empower urban youth to graduate high school with job skills and improved eating habits.

Organic Seed Alliance. Advances the ethical development and stewardship of the genetic resources of agricultural seed. Believes that seed is part of our common cultural heritage—a living, natural resource that demands careful management to meet food needs now and into the future.

The Pongo Fund. An emergency pet food distribution network, it provides quality pet food to people in need, keeping animals out of shelters and keeping pets healthy.

Others to consider are Growing Gardens, Grow Portland and Outgrowing Hunger (top photo). Feel free to add your favorites in the comments section below, and happy giving!

Read the other posts in this series: Gifts That Give Back, Mad Skills, Kids' Stuff, Bookin' It and Good Eatin'.

Farm Bulletin: A Handful of Seeds

It's a revelation to think of the fruit or vegetable you hold in your hand as a living seed packet, but that's just what contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm points out in this week's essay.

People often ask us where they can buy seeds for our Astiana tomatoes. The fact is, you are buying seeds when you buy the fruits at the market. That is how we started with the tomato, just 15 seeds from a tomato purchased in the market of Asti, a town in the Piedmont of Italy. It is a representative of a cooking tomato landrace from the Po River Valley. The fruits are large, green-shouldered, pear-shaped and often pleated. A landrace is a population of fruits, vegetables or livestock that is shaped by the environment and culture of the region to which it belongs. Representatives of the race will vary from village to village, but they have similar qualities. These tomatoes are selected for the quality of their flavor and texture after their encounter with the stove.

We never use the word heirloom in reference to the varieties we grow. We dislike the term, and the last time it was used in this newsletter was to explain our dislike of the word best applied to fragile, inanimate objects handed down generation to generation. Beautiful Corn was written without using the word at all. Heirlooms are defined as named varieties that have been around for 25 years. Seeds are living plants, reshaped by their cultivators year-after-year, and landrace is the better term. It recognizes the living organisms are constantly changing and adapting to new environments and cultures, and this applies to their cultivators as well. The fact is, we have reshaped that tomato we purchased in Asti seven years ago, but we have carefully kept its fine cooking qualities foremost in our efforts.

Approximately 80% of the legumes, vegetables and grains we bring to market are grown from seeds we produce on the farm. Another 10% are grown from the seeds developed by Frank Morton at Wild Garden Seed in Philomath, about 60 miles south of Gaston. Producing our own seed allows us to draw out traits valuable for successful production in the Willamette Valley.

This month the Organic Seed Alliance will hold organic seed production workshops for farmers at Adaptive Seeds in Sweet Home on the 17th and at Ayers Creek on the 19th. Veteran seed producer John Navazio will lead the workshops. He is both practitioner and theoretician, an important source of information and inspiration to those of us who grow our own seed. Linda Colwell will prepare a lunch for the participants that will include the fruits, vegetables and grains we grow at the farm, underscoring the link between the seeds and food. It will be a fun day for all and we expect to learn a lot from Navazio.

Adopting the name Astiana for our tomato, we honor the long tradition of naming varieties after the location of their origin. This week, we will bring to the market a delightful, spicy grape called Canadice. It is a celibate variety from New York State research station in Geneva, New York. Until recently, they named all their varieties after places in New York; Candice is one of the Finger Lakes in western New York. Other varieties that we grow from that program with a New York tag include the grapes Interlaken, Sheridan and Steuben, and the plums Seneca and Stanley. Sadly, they have abandoned this tradition and now names are developed through "consumer testing." Two recent releases are called SnapDragon and RubyFrost. Perils of callow thinking.

Great Gifting: Give a Little, Get a Lot

Making lists, checking them twice…and don't get me started on the whole naughty or nice thing. It's just all too much to keep track of!

So I say opt out, walk away, leave it at the door. No one I know needs more stuff, and the idea of the holidays (and, come to think of it, life in general) is to give joy, spread peace and love and generally try to make the planet a better place, right?

And who wouldn't like—instead of smiling politely and wondering how long they have to display a gift before it goes in the Goodwill pile—to know that they're helping to further the work of those doing good in the world?

There are lots of folks in our community laboring to do just that every day, and are deserving of support for their efforts. Here are a few of my favorites. Please consider giving a gift in the name of your loved ones!

• Zenger Farm: A working urban farm that models, promotes and educates the community about sustainable food systems, environmental stewardship, community development and access to good food for all. They also provide training for immigrant and refugee farmers in language and business skills as well as urban agriculture.
• Friends of Family Farmers: Building a strong and united voice for Oregon’s independent family farmers, food advocates, and concerned citizens who are working to foster an approach to agriculture that respects the land, treats animals humanely, sustains local communities, and provides a viable livelihood for family farmers.
• Organic Seed Alliance: Advances the ethical development and stewardship of the genetic resources of agricultural seed. This is accomplished through collaborative education, advisory services and research programs with organic farmers and other seed professionals.
• Farmers Market Fund: Improving access for underserved communities to food grown by local farmers and provide opportunities to learn about the benefits of fresh, local food. The Fresh Exchange program provides a dollar-for-dollar match to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) users at three neighborhood farmers markets. In Willamette Week Give Guide under Health & Wellness section.
• Farmers Ending Hunger: Utilizing the productive resources of Oregon’s farmers to fight hunger, FEH relies on the Oregon Food Bank’s network of social-service programs to distribute locally grown, high-quality food to hungry individuals. To date, more than 7.9 million pounds of fresh produce and commodities like wheat have been donated.  In Willamette Week Give Guide under Social Action section.
• Xerces Society: Protecting wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitat. For 40 years, the Society has been at the forefront of invertebrate protection, working with farmers here in Oregon and worldwide, harnessing the knowledge of scientists and the enthusiasm of citizens to implement conservation programs. Perfect for the bug-lover in your circle!