Headline : On the Ground with the Growers Working to Localize Seed Production

Read more from the original article on here at modernfarmer.com.

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The local food movement often has its roots in seeds grown far afield, but more farmers want to bring those foundational pieces of agriculture back home.

For many small-scale fruit and vegetable growers, “local” is the word that makes their business work. Shoppers seek out—and pay premiums for—the promise that a juicy tomato or vibrant squash was raised right down the road. 

Yet much of the time, the local food economy ultimately depends on big farms thousands of miles across the country or even overseas: the seed producers who provide planting stock for the growing season. The resulting seeds, developed under very different environmental conditions, aren’t always a great agricultural fit for the farms that grow them. And mistakes by large seed farms can reverberate widely, as with last year’s “Jalapeñogate,” where stores across the United States sold peppers that had been mislabeled by an international grower.

Phil Howard, a professor of community sustainability at Michigan State University, has estimated that more than 60 percent of the global seed market is now controlled by four multinational companies after decades of consolidation through corporate acquisitions. Even regional seed distributors often get supplies from those centralized sources.

Read more from the original article on here at modernfarmer.com.

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