Post by PatrickW on Oct 26, 2008 11:45:14 GMT -5
I was hoping to interest some of you in a seed sharing network I'm working on. I wasn't so much thinking of anything like the exchanges you have with the kinds of seeds offered here, but rather something aimed at ordinary gardeners.
In Europe we have the immediate problem that it's almost impossible to run a small seed company, and in any case totally impossible if you have any expectations of profit. This is because unregistered varieties are illegal, and any place that tries to sell them is simply harassed or fined out of business.
Of course small seed companies all over the world have similar problems, and I don't mean to single out Europe as special, it's only that now it's a particularly pressing problem here. This problem is not going to go away any other way than mass action of some sort, and really the only long term solution is if there's a well established informal network of seed exchange in place. In this way the small seed companies will no longer be an interesting target.
Of course there are many reasons for such a network, and lots of others can benefit, not just European seed companies.
I recently made a post about this on my blog:
www.patnsteph.net/weblog/?p=540
I want to make clear that I am prepared to try to work with almost anyone, with almost any quantity of seeds and almost any conditions they want to put on the distribution of those seeds as long as I think they are useful to other people. No commercial F1s please. In principle they should be seeds saved from your own garden or farm. Unstable varieties or mixes are okay, as long as you make clear what they are and they would be interesting to other gardeners.
Hopefully you have something as interesting as possible to offer, but a simple variety or two is enough and also very much appreciated. Most people are food growers, but other plants are considered too.
If you want to charge a modest fee, or insist on a trade, that's okay. If you want to place reasonable restrictions like they must be redistributed, this is probably okay, we can discuss it. If you have 1 variety or 100, that's okay too. You are also free to withdraw your offer anytime.
The ideal thing would be if you offered them yourself like Alan did with his seeds:
homegrowngoodness.blogspot.com/2008/10/hip-gnosis-seed-development-seed-list.html
If you do this, then I can put a link to you from my blog, and we are done.
If you can't do this, maybe you don't have a blog, no problem. On the most simple level, all I need to know is what the best way to contact you is, what varieties you want to offer, the financial terms you expect and any other conditions.
Feel free to post a comment here, send me a private message and you can find my current email address here:
www.patnsteph.net/weblog/?page_id=38
Once I have an idea of how many people like this are willing to participate, I will try to figure out the best way of organizing it all. It's my intention to avoid a single point of organization, and to avoid any one person ending up with too much work to do, so I'm going to try to make it as decentralized as possible. It's also nice if some of your seeds end up crossing into other legal jurisdictions. I explain the reasons for these things more in my blog post above.
Let me try to give you an idea of what to expect if you participate in this. My blog has a monthly readership of about 10,000 people from all over the world, and this number is growing. It's not unusual for this number to double over the course of a few months. The readership goes down sometimes too. Some percentage of these people will be interested in your seeds. In addition, I will be actively promoting the use of your seeds.
My experience in offering totally free seeds, where I pay the postage myself, is an average of about 1 or 2 requests per month. If you want to be paid, especially in your own currency, it will likely be considerably less. To be honest, most people who are participating now don't have any expectation of being paid except when the postage costs exceed a few dollars.
It's very possible, especially if you offer an interesting variety, you could attract a lot more interest than 1 or 2 people per month. In this case hopefully someone else would start saving and redistributing the seeds too.
It's a fact, it's harder to get seeds into the US than it is to get them out. It's also a fact, most of the interesting seeds and plant breeding work is being done in the US now. It's also probably true more people in Europe grow more of their own food, as this is an important part of the culture here in many places. Many people are also eying the interesting seeds in the US because they are a lot harder to get here.
For these reasons, people in the US who participate in these exchanges can expect to do so at a disadvantage. Canada is not as bad, but the situation is similar.
Europeans are often particularly interested in their national heirloom varieties that might be circulating in the US. Many of these are no longer available here.
Most people participating so far have an Internet blog, and the way it usually works is like this. First they request and get the seeds from you, then they announce it together with other things they are growing that year. If it's successful in their garden, they write about their experiences, post pictures and re-offer saved seeds. If you are developing a new variety and want it to become known, this can be an excellent way!
To be clear many people participating are beginning gardeners, and crop failures are common. You will send out some seeds and not even get a thank you in return. Hopefully you will also get some useful feedback and even make a friend or two.
There are lots of details to be sorted out in all of this, and I invite your comments and suggestions!
If you think there are other ways you can help, please let me know this too.
If this is a bad year for some reason, consider joining us in the future.
I hope some of you want to participate!
In Europe we have the immediate problem that it's almost impossible to run a small seed company, and in any case totally impossible if you have any expectations of profit. This is because unregistered varieties are illegal, and any place that tries to sell them is simply harassed or fined out of business.
Of course small seed companies all over the world have similar problems, and I don't mean to single out Europe as special, it's only that now it's a particularly pressing problem here. This problem is not going to go away any other way than mass action of some sort, and really the only long term solution is if there's a well established informal network of seed exchange in place. In this way the small seed companies will no longer be an interesting target.
Of course there are many reasons for such a network, and lots of others can benefit, not just European seed companies.
I recently made a post about this on my blog:
www.patnsteph.net/weblog/?p=540
I want to make clear that I am prepared to try to work with almost anyone, with almost any quantity of seeds and almost any conditions they want to put on the distribution of those seeds as long as I think they are useful to other people. No commercial F1s please. In principle they should be seeds saved from your own garden or farm. Unstable varieties or mixes are okay, as long as you make clear what they are and they would be interesting to other gardeners.
Hopefully you have something as interesting as possible to offer, but a simple variety or two is enough and also very much appreciated. Most people are food growers, but other plants are considered too.
If you want to charge a modest fee, or insist on a trade, that's okay. If you want to place reasonable restrictions like they must be redistributed, this is probably okay, we can discuss it. If you have 1 variety or 100, that's okay too. You are also free to withdraw your offer anytime.
The ideal thing would be if you offered them yourself like Alan did with his seeds:
homegrowngoodness.blogspot.com/2008/10/hip-gnosis-seed-development-seed-list.html
If you do this, then I can put a link to you from my blog, and we are done.
If you can't do this, maybe you don't have a blog, no problem. On the most simple level, all I need to know is what the best way to contact you is, what varieties you want to offer, the financial terms you expect and any other conditions.
Feel free to post a comment here, send me a private message and you can find my current email address here:
www.patnsteph.net/weblog/?page_id=38
Once I have an idea of how many people like this are willing to participate, I will try to figure out the best way of organizing it all. It's my intention to avoid a single point of organization, and to avoid any one person ending up with too much work to do, so I'm going to try to make it as decentralized as possible. It's also nice if some of your seeds end up crossing into other legal jurisdictions. I explain the reasons for these things more in my blog post above.
Let me try to give you an idea of what to expect if you participate in this. My blog has a monthly readership of about 10,000 people from all over the world, and this number is growing. It's not unusual for this number to double over the course of a few months. The readership goes down sometimes too. Some percentage of these people will be interested in your seeds. In addition, I will be actively promoting the use of your seeds.
My experience in offering totally free seeds, where I pay the postage myself, is an average of about 1 or 2 requests per month. If you want to be paid, especially in your own currency, it will likely be considerably less. To be honest, most people who are participating now don't have any expectation of being paid except when the postage costs exceed a few dollars.
It's very possible, especially if you offer an interesting variety, you could attract a lot more interest than 1 or 2 people per month. In this case hopefully someone else would start saving and redistributing the seeds too.
It's a fact, it's harder to get seeds into the US than it is to get them out. It's also a fact, most of the interesting seeds and plant breeding work is being done in the US now. It's also probably true more people in Europe grow more of their own food, as this is an important part of the culture here in many places. Many people are also eying the interesting seeds in the US because they are a lot harder to get here.
For these reasons, people in the US who participate in these exchanges can expect to do so at a disadvantage. Canada is not as bad, but the situation is similar.
Europeans are often particularly interested in their national heirloom varieties that might be circulating in the US. Many of these are no longer available here.
Most people participating so far have an Internet blog, and the way it usually works is like this. First they request and get the seeds from you, then they announce it together with other things they are growing that year. If it's successful in their garden, they write about their experiences, post pictures and re-offer saved seeds. If you are developing a new variety and want it to become known, this can be an excellent way!
To be clear many people participating are beginning gardeners, and crop failures are common. You will send out some seeds and not even get a thank you in return. Hopefully you will also get some useful feedback and even make a friend or two.
There are lots of details to be sorted out in all of this, and I invite your comments and suggestions!
If you think there are other ways you can help, please let me know this too.
If this is a bad year for some reason, consider joining us in the future.
I hope some of you want to participate!
