Seed Library

The Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) committee is constructing a seed library. This seed library is committed to providing our community with island appropriate open source seeds, fostering community resilience, self-reliance and a culture of sharing. Magically contained in each seed is the blueprint of life of a plant or tree that grows to offer sustenance to us and other living creatures. Much older than the human race itself, these little blueprints of life are now under threat. Thousands of years of evolution and our ancestors’ labor resulted in a massive diversity of plant varieties adapted to differing localized growing conditions. This diversity is rapidly being lost, with an estimate of approximately 97 percent of U.S. Department of Agriculture lists having disappeared in the last 80 years. Of the remaining seeds in the worlds, 98 percent are now in the hands of just six companies. The seeds being eliminated are the older, open-pollinated, heirloom varieties.With more and more cultivars disappearing it is more important than ever to keep varieties of seeds alive and available for future generations. There is much diversity and strength found in local seed. In light of the demise of so many heirloom seeds, and the conglomeration of seed stock by large agri-chemical companies who have even invented “terminator seeds,” the urgency of this matter became evident. Furthermore, the introduction into American culture of GE (genetically engineered) or GM (genetically modified) plants and foods is seen as a major threat to organic food production.

Through the 2011 annual LCLT Food Charrette, islanders spawned a GMO-Free group. Later LCLT brought in the Percy Schmeiser for its 2011 Harvest Dinner. Percy Schmeiser is a renowned advocate for farmers’ rights to save their own seed. All this has contributed to the vision of a seed library by LCLT for use by the community. LCLT is also sponsoring workshops on seed saving. LCLT has gathered other small equipment that is available to the community in our effort to promote local food security. LCLT received a small flour mill, a hand cranked silage maker, and purchased a small seed cleaner. A LCLT Board member improved a lightweight scythe and made it available for replication. Quality hand sickles were located for purchasing. There is still an effort to secure a small thresher for grain.

LCLT advertised for a grain research intern and connected with O.J. Lougheed, a grain research specialist. Through OJ’s work over a period of a couple of years, LCLT members quickly learned that more farm equipment for grain existed than had previously been known. However, much of the equipment is older, and not necessarily appropriate to the needs or scale of current grain growing on the island. Other issues were brought forward regarding grain, demonstrating the need to address fertility of land, fencing, and accessing of land long term to provide for grain trials. LCLT facilitated establishment of a Grain CSA in the community. The first year the Grain CSA, under the able hands of Horse Drawn Farms and Ken Akopiantz and facilitated by LCLT, had 25 subscribers. The second successful year had 40 subscribers.

seed cleaner cleaning wheat from Grain CSA

Steam engine for the thresher

CSA Grain Harvest Threshing

Grain CSA Harvest

Ona’s Bread: At one of the Annual LCLT Harvest Dinner, this bread won First Prize. Ona Blue has been growing this wheat in her garden for several years and usually harvests about 90 pounds – a years supply of bread for her family of two. She obtained the original Certified Organic seed from Johnny’s Selected Seed. (They no longer carry it.) The variety is ‘Polk’ – a hard red spring wheat – which was bred at and released by the Minnesota Agriculture Experiment Station in 1968. It is a tall non-semi-dwarf wheat and maintains good resistance to the predominate Stripe Rusts west of the Cascades. The varieties from which Polk was bred have both Red Fife (a spring wheat) and Turkey Red (a winter wheat) in their pedigrees. We believe that Polk is one of many older wheats that have a place in the search for local grain production on the Islands.

Made from homegrown WHEAT, grown, threshed and milled by hand and foot power on Lopez Island plus water and sea salt

Downloads:

Documents are in either Portable Document Format (PDF) or in Rich Text Format (RTF). The later can be opened by MS Word as well as TextEdit on a Mac or various programs on Linux.

• 2010 Grain Project Summary (91 KB Download)
• Written version of an address by O.J. Lougheed given at the Fall Grain Harvest Workshop (2009) hosted by the WSU Extension office in Friday Harbor. (16 KB Download)
• Grain Project Brochure (Fall 2009) in PDF format (2 MB Download)
• 2009 Winter Grain Data Sheet in RTF format (7 KB Download)
• “Finley Wheat, the Rest of the Story” by O.J. Lougheed, from which the text for the “Finley Wheat” insert in the Grain Brochure was taken. (6 KB Download)

Links:

• “Growing Your Own Grains” An essay which is part of an umpublished book-length manuscript titled “Survival Gardening,” by Peter Goodchild.

For more information regarding grain and pulses, you may contact OJ Lougheed atolougheed@gmail.com

Seed Library Grand Opening

The Grand Opening of the Seed Library coincided with the 2012 Food Charrette on February 25, 2012.  This event focused on increasing availability of local food on Lopez Island. Our new seed librarian Ken Akopiantz spoke of the importance of saving and expanding our supply of local seeds that are appropriate to the island.  The proposed GMO-free Initiative for San Juan County was also highlighted. This initiative protects farmers from losing the right to plant their own seeds, and keeps the islands free of genetically engineered plants and seeds.

Percy Schmeiser--Guest Speaker for Harvest Dinner

The 2011 Harvest Dinner was Saturday, October 22, at 5:30 p.m. in the Community Center with guest speaker Percy Schmeiser. Percy Schmeiser is a farmer from Bruno, Saskatchewan, Canada, whose canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto’s GMO Round-Up Ready Canola. He specializes in breeding and growing canola. He became an international symbol and spokesperson for independent farmers’ rights and the regulation of transgenic crops during his protracted legal battle with agrichemical company Monsanto Company. “I have always campaigned on the right of a farmer to save and re-use his own seed. This is what I have been doing for the last 50 years. I will continue to support any efforts to strengthen the rights of a farmer to save and re-use his own seed.”

Food Charrette

Food Charrette 2011 book table

The 2012 Food Charrette focused on increasing access to local food on Lopez. Anyone who cooks food, retails food, grows food, processes food, or eats food is invited to our food charrettes. This year’s special focus was the Grand Opening of the Seed Library. Other issues included GM-free Lopez, the Thrive conference, the farm-to-school program, hunger on Lopez, and a commercial processing facility. Registration was $5 BYO lunch or $15 with a catered lunch from Vortex. This annual event was February 25, 2012 from 9:30 to 3:30 at the Community Center.

Lopez Fresh

Lunch at 2011 Food Charrette

Seed packets made by LISD students in Garden and Farm Program

The Awards of Excellence winners were selected from projects submitted by nonprofit housing developers throughout the country. An advisory committee of experts from a variety of affordable housing, community development, building sciences and environmental organizations participated in the selection process. The committee included representatives of Enterprise Community Partners, Forest Stewardship Council, U.S., Global Green USA, Housing Assistance Council, Jay Hall & Associates, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, NeighborWorks America, Nixon Peabody, Southface Energy Institute, U.S. Green Building Council and last year winners Habitat for Humanity St. Louis and National CORE.

“We believe that healthy, affordable homes are the cornerstone of strong families and thriving communities,” said Kelly Caffarelli, president of The Home Depot Foundation. “LCLT demonstrates that by following the principles of energy efficiency and using good quality products and finishes, families can reap the benefits of lower monthly utility costs and healthier surroundings. We are confident that the work done by LCLT will serve as a model for all developers.”

Director Sandy Bishop received the award on behalf of the Common Ground neighborhood in Chicago at the Green Build Conference November 19th. Keynote speaker following the presentation was Henry Cisneros, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Clinton administration.

A case study and video about the winning LCLT project can be found at http://www.homedepotfoundation.org/awards/affordable-housing/winners.html

Home Depot Foundation Program Manager Tim Block, Sandy Bishop–Winner in the home ownership category of the Award for Excellence for Affordable Housing Built Responsibly, US Green Building Council (USGBC) President and CEO Rick Fedrizzi, and Home Depot Foundation Director and COO Fred Wacker. The Home Depot Foundation is dedicated to supporting the development of healthy affordable homes as the cornerstone of sustainable communities. For more information, visit www.homedepotfoundation.org.

Lopez Community Land Trust’s fourth affordable housing neighborhood and net-zero community was one of two to receive the Grand Award in this category. PCBC represents the 14 Western States and the Pacific Rim. This award recognizes those who improve our communities through exceptional concepts in design, planning and development. Grand award winners were announced at a luncheon in San Francisco and receive a trophy that looks like a 1 inch gold nugget in acrylic. This makes the fourth award granted to the Lopez Common Ground Project.

The award included a plaque; a short video of the project; an energy audit kit donated by Fluke including an infrared thermometer, laser distance meter and a dozen other devices; a trip to Austin Texas to attend the ACI National Home Performance Conference; high accuracy software for energy audits; and other training scholarships and certificates. The conference attendees spent one morning downtown at the Hall of States with staff of the Obama administration, focusing on national energy policy, jobs, the importance of energy conservation and the role it plays in our energy independence as a nation.