Highlighting the heroic work of the Irish Seed Savers
For the year that’s in it — with celebrations of national heroes abounding — I thought it might be a good idea to profile a horticultural hero in each month across 2016.
This will cover people or organisations I feel have advanced our exaltation among the nations and there will be an actual 1916 hero with roots in botany on the list — but we will save that for Easter week.
We will hear quoted a million times too, this year of “cherishing all the children of the nation equally”, a line that still breaks my heart because of how successive generations have failed to do that. However, for me the line in the proclamation that speaks volumes is “in full confidence of victory” and that is the thread of the 12 horticultural heroes I will spotlight.
Each is determined to make a difference, to exact change, to not just stick a licked finger above the parapet, but to leap over and get stuck in. For some, it may be a protracted war but they fight on with all their talents and with full confidence.
None more so than the Irish Seed Savers. Founded by Anita Hayes in 1991, it exists as a living testimony to Ireland’s unique botanical wealth.
It celebrates and preserves the nation’s biodiversity and agricultural legacy of our ancestors and enables us to pass on to the new generations heritage and heirloom crops that otherwise would be lost.
The genius of Irish Seed Savers is that the living ark of heritage crops is a much better way to preserve our horticultural heritage than in a static seed banks, frozen in time and wrapped in cotton wool.
The yearly renewed cultivation of these crops exposes them to the realities of climate change, to the evolution of circumstances in pest and diseases and strengthens them to compete and thrive in the modern world.
Sure, seed banks are good ideas in case of ecological disaster or other apocalyptic scenarios. They will come in handy after we recover from the rise of the apes, machines, zombies or Seanad.
However, those seeds unwrapped from their cotton wool will be time-capsuled to a particular strain of pest, disease, climate pattern and may be hard work to harden off. The Irish Seeds Savers seeds will be as acclimatised as last week.
Anita began collecting and growing heritage crops on a small farm in Co Carlow with the intention of preserving and rescuing from extinction, indigenous varieties that were fast disappearing. Discovering the scale of losss and the work to be done, Irish Seed Savers was born and began enlisting public support to collect, share and grow heirloom crops.
It has extended into the preservation of heritage varieties from all over the world that are suitable for Ireland’s unique growing conditions, making food security an agenda and inspiring other movements in organic farming and sustainable gardening.
In 1996 the organisation as it had become, moved to Capparoe, Scarriff and today the Clare site cultivates (and distributes the seeds of) 600 heirloom vegetables including a heritage potato collection as well as 48 heirloom grain crops and 140 native apple varieties. An amazing achievement.
The orchards on the Scarrif site alone allows Ireland to meet its European obligations in the area of conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources in food and agriculture. Within those orchards are a unique strand of over 33 self-rooting varieties of apple trees.
That means they require no grafting for propagation. That collection is the largest collection of this type of apple tree in the world and is acknowledged globally as something that enhances the biodiversity of Earth, not just Ireland.
I am not a fan of organised religions but I am proud that Irish seed savers goes beyond a charitable organisation to become a community organisation with international reach. A community we can join.
While its main objective is the conservation of special and threatened plant genetic resources that are best suited to cultivation in Ireland’s temperate maritime climate, they put a big educational emphasis on best growing practices. You can pick up a manual, take a course on-site or online or visit in person for inspiration and advice.
And being forerunners on the sustainability front, you can learn about cheese- making, cider brewing and beekeeping. I am a fan of honey on my toast, but the honey bee is well looked after by the honey industry, I worry more about our 101 varieties of native bee, losing their habitat and nectar sources many of which rely on our gardens and local hedgerow to avoid extinction.
I am enamoured of the native black bee (Apis mellifera mellifera) which has pollinated this island for the last 10,000 years, but is sadly under threat in recent decades. Irish Seedsavers is also preserving this species with colony hives utilised to pollinate the orchards and gardens on site.
The success of this is mirrored in the development in recent years of native broadleaf woodland and a wildlife sanctuary that seriously impresses. As an organisation, it is a real role model for other European countries and international regions.
It is this far-reaching holistic approach that gives me full confidence of victory. We can win the war. We don’t need chemical weapons to garden.
We can be organic and sustainable. We don’t need genetically modified nutrition units. We can grow real food. We don’t need to blast the past for pseudo-modernity — heritage, culture and age-old practices are as super-efficient as we need.
Climate change is a battle, food security is a battle, access to correct knowledge can be a challenge but we can equip ourselves. If you want to enlist or contribute to the war effort visit Irish seed savers on site or online, sign up for a course or workshop, buy a pack of seed and encourage friends to do likewise. Subscribe.
One of my favourite Irish traits is encompassed in the law of the bee keeper — that old Brehon tract that facilitated not just laws and governance, but also gave expression to the Irish soul and psyche.
The beekeeper shared his honey with those who grew flowers in fields and lands neighbouring his/ her hives because his bees fed from those flowers. How beautiful, how collaborative, how respectful.
This too I see in Irish Seedsavers, which donates a percentage of its earned yearly income to support other organisations with similar ecological aims within Ireland — and also in the developing world.
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