A day at the Landraces

We are peculiarly situated at a point in time where we would not recognize a food crop perfectly suited for our back fields. Seeds are bred for desirable traits, with the assumption that we can manufacture the environment such beings demand. Breeds are distinct, unique, and stable. Farmers find themselves struggling to alter their soils and machinery to meet the demands of breeds they choose, to meet the demands of large processors, distributors, and certification boards of all stripes.

we went on a field trip to see John Letts, and the work he’s doing that undermines this crazy system. An anthropologist by training, he was studying the thatching industry in the UK some years ago. Thatching depends on long wheat straws, which make beautiful, waterproof roofs that will last 40 years. When the roof needs to be re-thatched, more is added to the top. This means the thatch on the bottom of some of the roofs was hundreds of years old. During his research, he found seeds of ancient varieties of wheat. This was quite fortuitous. Most modern wheat has insufficient length in the stalk to be useful in thatching. Modern wheat was bred to be short so that loads of nitrogen could be applied and the grass wouldn’t fall over.

Essentially, what he started doing was growing large, mixed populations of ancient varieties of wheat. By taking 300-450 different kinds and planting them all together he would stimulate self-selection for a certain parcel of land. Whichever varieties grew, he would save the seeds and plant them there the next year. Within a few seasons he had a population that was completely adapted to the land they were planted on. They were not stable, but constantly adapting. And they would only grow well in the very worst soil he could find—any nitrogen and they would get too heavy and fall over.

What John is doing is creating landraces. Before hybridization and great seed trading, everyone had grains suited for the land they were on. And genetic diversity was huge. To me, this is immensely inspiring and philosophically freeing. We do not need to rely on seed companies to verify cleanliness of seed and variety performance. We do not need to be hung up about speciation and corporate control of diversity. We can grow food crops that thrive on whatever soil we have, for whatever tools we have. Instead of orderd, rigid, scientific manipulation of genetics, we can co-create with the plants that feed us.