The Seed UndergroundThe Seed Underground
There is no despair in a seed. There's only life, waiting for the right conditions-sun and water, warmth and soil-to be set free. Everyday, millions upon millions of seeds lift their two green wings.
At no time in our history have Americans been more obsessed with food. Options- including those for local, sustainable, and organic food-seem limitless. And yet, our food supply is profoundly at risk. Farmers and gardeners a century ago had five times the possibilities of what to plant than farmers and gardeners do today; we are losing untold numbers of plant varieties to genetically modified industrial monocultures. In her latest work of literary nonfiction, award-winning author and activist Janisse Ray argues that if we are to secure the future of food, we first must understand where it all begins: the seed.
The Seed Underground is a journey to the frontier of seed-saving. It is driven by stories, both the author's own and those from people who are waging a lush and quiet revolution in thousands of gardens across America to preserve our traditional cornucopia of food by simply growing old varieties and eating them. The Seed Underground pays tribute to time-honored and threatened varieties, deconstructs the politics and genetics of seeds, and reveals the astonishing characters who grow, study, and save them.
Janisse Ray, a writer and naturalist who has been called "the Rachel Carson of the South," explores seed-keeping practices across the United States. The work is a collection of creative non-fiction essays about seed-savers and gardeners that Ray seeks out across the country. She learns much from everyone she recalls and this bleeds over in the very personal register and stream-of-consciousness pace the writing takes, making it slightly more subjective than ethnography. Later chapters drift into more general topics about seed-banking in other countries, "public breeding, private profit," grass-roots resistance to Big Agriculture, and farmers' rights. A resource guide to seed-collecting projects is included in the back. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Discusses the loss of fruit and vegetable varieties and the genetically modified industrial monocultures being used today, shares the author's personal experiences growing, saving, and swapping seeds, and deconstructs the politics and genetics of seeds.
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- White River Junction, Vermont : Chelsea Green Publishing, [2012], ©2012
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