Saved by Seeds: Embracing Diversity, Adaptation, and Resilience

Seed saving might seem like a simple, old-fashioned custom, but seeds offer a radical pathway to resilient relationships between people, plant, and place. Symbols of renewal, seeds hold the promise of a greener future. But despite the powerful potential of seeds to adapt, modern seed saving often attempts to maintain varieties as they have always been. In the face of ecological devastation and severe climate change, genetically static crops do not offer the resiliency our food systems need. Saved by Seeds presents a passionate argument for seed diversity while presenting practical advice for readers to grow, harvest, dry, and store a wide variety of seeds. In 2018, Chris Smith, a James Beard Award–winning author, founded the Utopian Seed Project, a nonprofit dedicated to cultivating, researching, and celebrating resiliency in food and farming via agrobiodiversity. Saved by Seeds encourages everyone, from new gardeners to experienced farmers, to harness the bounty of their seeds by using creative and low-tech approaches to selecting and breeding diverse, adaptive, and resilient crops. “The seeds we save require us to plant them, tend them, and save them again. In return there is the annual hope for another season, another harvest, and always another opportunity to be a little better.” —Chris Smith