SEED SAVIOURS

Alice Whitehead reveals how half a century of conservation has seen the Heritage Seed Library grow from a small start to a national treasure

- Alice Whitehead

Seeds are meant to be sown. This ethos has always been at the heart of the Heritage Seed Library's vital conservation work.

For five decades, the Library at Garden Organic in Ryton, near Coventry, has squirrelled away parcels of precious heritage and heirloom seeds to safeguard them for future generations. Unlike a traditional seed bank, they're not kept on ice - but shared with growers and gardeners to grow again.

This is a living library cultivated by people for people. And it follows in the footsteps of centuries of community seed sovereignty, where gardeners and farmers patiently saved seeds from their crops and selected varieties for their wonderful diversity.

Seeds have always been a precious currency passed down from father to son and mother to daughter. But over the last century, we've seen a steep decline in local vegetable varieties. Thanks to seed regulations (which have led to intensive production of a reduced number of species), the industrialisation of agriculture and the redrawing of EU boundaries, we've lost many hundreds of rare varieties, grown for generations by small seed companies, families and communities. Fifty years ago, the Heritage Seed Library came to their rescue.

THE RISE OF THE NATIONAL LIST

A key turning point for the future of seeds happened on January 1, 1973. At midnight, a Union flag was raised at the European Economic Community's (EEC) headquarters in Brussels to mark the United Kingdom formally joining the EEC. Celebrations were held in the city, and revellers led a torch-lit procession – but, later, one man began foreseeing the implications for vital and valuable biodiversity.