Growing Diversity: Supporting a new generation of seed producers in Canada
Mary Brittain is the instructor for Organic Vegetable Seed Production (OVSP) and Marc Rivard is one of her students. Many thanks to both of them for sharing their knowledge, impressions, and hopes for the future of seed saving education.
Meet The Instructor
Mary Brittain is passionate about preserving the genetic biodiversity of our food crops. She first started gardening in southern Ontario, where her curiosity soon grew into a deeper interest in the lifecycle of seeds and plants. In 1996 she established her business, the Cottage Gardener, and over the next 25 years produced and sold over 750 varieties of heirloom vegetable, herb, and flower seeds.
Learning on her own at that time meant cobbling together resources, and dealing with significant gaps in publicly available knowledge. Without formal training, Mary taught herself everything she could, developing careful practices to ensure the heirloom varieties she stewarded could be preserved for future generations.
“It was incumbent on me to learn to do this properly. There were no courses at that time, I had to do it myself.”
Since closing her business in 2019 she has turned her sights to training the next generation of seed growers in Canada. She has been instrumental in creating and teaching this organic vegetable seed course, a joint initiative of SeedChange’s Canadian program, Canadian Organic Growers, and Vancouver Island University. It is currently offered in BC through Vancouver Island University and nationally through Canadian Organic Growers.
Mary feels the need for seed saving education is driven by several interconnected factors. In Canada, there is a growing demand to improve the quality, quantity, and diversity of regionally-adapted seeds to meet the challenges of a changing climate. At the same time, increased corporate ownership of seed systems has led to tighter constraints and intellectual property restrictions. Many commercially available hybrid seeds cannot be saved and reproduced each year and technologies such as gene editing further limit the ability of farmers to save seed. In addition, the expansion of monoculture farming practices has contributed to the loss of traditional and locally-adapted plant varieties, making seed-saving knowledge more important than ever.
“All of this is contributing to the loss of agricultural biodiversity. All of these trends come together on the farm, but it’s at the farm level that we can also make a change.”
Mary stresses to her students that while not all seeds can be saved, learning to grow and save open pollinated seed every year ensures farmers can maintain their independence and build seed sovereignty.
“It’s a real passion of mine to make sure that organic open pollinated seeds are grown in a quality way. We have to think about why we are trying to preserve open pollinated varieties. If we want to increase that part of the seed sector, we need to make sure we are doing a good quality job. There is a lot of misinformation out there. When farmers have the skills and knowledge to produce their own seeds they maintain the biodiversity of the seed, preserving the genetic traits that we don’t even know we need yet.”
Having run her own seed company, Mary can offer her students valuable advice on how to make it a profitable business venture, how to know whether time spent on seed production is worth it, and how to find or make the required equipment and tools. She wants all of her students to have the skills and confidence to design a smart seed crop plan with the knowledge they’ve learned through the course.
Mary’s students give her tremendous hope. Students come to her from diverse backgrounds: some have farmed for a long time, some run backyard or school gardens, others have their own local seed banks. All are committed to learning how to save seeds properly.
“Because our generation largely had to learn seed production on our own, through trial and error and self directed learning, I’m hopeful to now see a high-quality course emerging with established standards and shared knowledge. At the farm level we can start to reclaim growing and saving our seeds to meet our own needs. That grassroots level action with farmers is what gives me hope.”
Meet the Student
Marc Rivard grew up in a family with deep Prairie farming roots. He learned about farming first-hand from his grandfather and uncles and more indirectly from stories and memories shared on both sides of his family. As a child he helped out on the farm but did not start farming himself until 2008.
Marc’s five-acre farm in southwestern Manitoba is a mix of trees, shrubs and crops planted with agroecological principles in mind. Marc has not used any synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or other inputs and encourages birds, insects and wildlife to visit and live on his farm, recognizing how important diversity is to a healthy ecosystem.
Marc’s farm in southwestern Manitoba
Marc had been growing his own fruits and vegetables for many years and had dabbled in seed saving, but was eager to increase his understanding and expertise through more formal learning.
“I wanted to learn how to be a better, more deliberate grower of seed crops. Seed security, sovereignty and the ability to grow high quality locally-adapted seeds appeals to me greatly for many reasons. Nature’s way of preparing and propagating the future is so unique and fascinating. How a plant can ensure its successive future is remarkable and beautiful. How seeds are created and the variations available within open pollinated crops is magnificent.”
Marc is grateful that the course raised his awareness about the current state of small-scale seed crop production. This knowledge is essential for understanding how decision-makers may alter rules, regulations, language, and legislation in ways that negatively affect farmers’ ability to remain seed-secure and maintain seed sovereignty.
“This course creates a space for a specific and deliberate community to take shape, where like-minded individuals can meet, exchange experiences and help each other be successful in accomplishing common goals within the seed production sector and agriculture industry, whatever those goals may be. It showcases the need for open pollinated, non GMO, organically grown seeds. It reinforces that it is possible to grow high quality organic seeds within a vegetable production framework.”
More broadly, Marc considers this course invaluable to the seed industry at large. It prompts students to consider how they might best fit within the seed production industry; supplier, grower, wholesaler, manager of a seed co-op to name a few examples.
“I hope my role as a farmer will impact local seed diversity as one of my goals is to select for open pollinated plants that are more adapted to the changing climate conditions experienced in our area.”
When asked about the most valuable thing he learned from this course Marc responded, “Professionalism. If you want to get the best quality you can’t cut corners. I feel more disciplined, professional, and deliberate in making quality seed selections and determining which plants should be saved as seed sources”.
For any budding seed enthusiasts out there, Marc recommends the course wholeheartedly.
“There is no substitute for interactions with like-minded growers who can share insight and experience.”
Many thanks to both Mary Brittain and Marc Rivard for sharing their perspectives on the course.