Kent Whealy: SSE = Monsanto

[grunt]

"Also, look around and find how many "heirloom" seed companies have popped up in the past 10-15 years. It seems that no matter what obscure variety of something is mentioned, it's available commercially from some little Internet company which started up in the past several years. Prior to that, the only mention was usually in the SSE Yearbook. Usually no question about the source. For that very reason, I'm going to just keep adding to my total listings for as long as I am able to continue finding decent varieties to list. That Yearbook represents one awful lot of Burbanks and Livingstons who are preserving the past so that the future may enjoy it."

Yes!

[PapaVic]

SSE board's long awaited formal reply to Kent Whealy's allegations can be read at this link:

www.seedsavers.org/board_statement.htm

[PatrickW]

I wonder why no one posted a link to that before? I guess no one thought of it. Anyway, all of the responses from the SSE and their supporters can be found here:

www.seedsavers.org/Content.aspx?src=oursideofthestory.htm

[PapaVic]

Nov 16, 2010 12:31:08 GMT -5 PatrickW said:

I wonder why no one posted a link to that before?

I think because, as I said earlier, humans tend to act in self interest. So, rather than seeking out and considering information that might lead to an alternative conclusion, they hold to, repeat, and reinforce ideas that comport with preconceived notions ... whether those notions be group dogma or individual conceptions. Either way, it just feels safer to them that way.


pv

[PapaVic]

Patrick, I went back and reread the entire thread, much of which is spent arguing the philosophy of plant patents rather than Kent Whealey's allegation that SSE has joined the Evil Empire, and found that Martin already had given a link to the same letter (along with several other letters of response) as I linked directly today. So, someone already had given out that information.

I think if everyone would go back and reread the thread, especially the first two pages, there were some very harsh judgments made of SSE and the current board of directors with regard to their intent and their devotion to the original mission.

In the light of the letter of reply from the board, if it is even 75% indisputable in its facts, I think there is a great deal of misconception on the part of many SSE members about how their donations of money and seeds were administered PRIOR to Kent Whealey's removal. And there has been a great deal of misconception spread across the Internet since his dismissal.

Just sayin', I think it's better to digest as much information about an issue as is available before making rush judgments. But then, it's only human ...

Nov 11, 2010 1:17:59 GMT -5 paquebot said:

And further on the original topic, I've now read the latest from Kent Whealey for the third or fourth time. His early letters were mainly involved in gaining access to certain files in SSE but no reason given. I could understand him wanting access to something that he felt was his property. Later letters tried to convince me that SSE was in the hands of morons and the biggest was Amy Goldman. Perhaps some of that was correct in that there were some changes made via resignations for unstated reasons. Still, there was no major concern in SSE. Now, the latest has really stirred up a major hornet's nest. The message I get from Kent Whealey's speech is that "I brought you into this world and I'll take you out of this world." It has switched from saving SSE to destroying SSE. I never met Kent but met his son a number of times. (Aaron Whealey was the manager of the Madison, WI SSE store and my first question on Garden Web in 2002 was to ask why I should join when their store was only 12 miles away.) Well, I do have a dog in this fight and all I can say is that Kent went way over the line this time. His great speeches in the 1970s and 1980s were to an uniformed public and whatever he said was taken as gospel. In one early one, it was he who first used the term "heirloom" in reference to OP varieties. Now he's preaching to the choir and it's more of a rant than a speech. The crowd is no longer comprised of people who have little knowledge of the topic. They aren't hayseed rubes whose only contact with the outside world is a penny postal card or a partyline telephone. Anything discussed can now be confirmed or denied with just a few strokes on a keyboard. My life spans that period so I know what has transpired.

My decision is that I will remain an SSE member and support what their original goals were. I do not have to support any or all of those who are currently in charge but from what has become of Kent Whealey leads me to believe that what we currently have is possibly better than what might have been.

Read "Our Side of the Story" on www.seedsavers.org and some may share my opinion that Kent Whealey went too far this time.Martin

[PatrickW]

PV,

Since I was the only one as far as I can see that said anything negative about the SSE in the first two pages, I assume you are referring to me.

To be clear the idea that I would have somehow not provided the link to the SSE website in order to prevent people from reading the SSE side of the story is absurd. Anyone interested could have typed Seed Savers Exchange into Google and come up with the link in a few minutes themselves. The SSE side of the story was also not particularly what I was talking about, but it was what you and Martin talked about which is why you both gave links. There were no secrets in this discussion.

I don't particularly agree with you that the board letter was '75% indisputable in its facts'. I think it was like Kent's letter making their own argument, didn't really address much of Kent's letter and was pretty light when it comes to providing evidence to support their statements. I also think their statement was pretty inflexible and didn't show any signs of coming to any sort of compromise with either Kent or the people who don't want their seeds deposited at Svalbard. They certainly didn't provide a link to Kent's point of view!

Even if you look through the statements made by the different people in that link, many of them did not choose to actively support the board or didn't have strong criticism for Kent (or were only critical over this one letter or the letters in general). Most of them did not offer very strong support for the Svalbard deposits, if any at all. In fact, I've hardly seen any support anywhere for the Svalbard deposits.

There are really lots of compromises to be made here. If there was a problem with the way Kent ran the SSE, then he might return as an advisor or board member. The seeds could be deposited somewhere there isn't such a contentious treaty covering them. Instead of forcing Kent to mail his letters to all the SSE members, the SSE could distribute them in one of their publications.

The only thing that's really preventing compromises like these are the SSEs refusal to acknowledge that anything Kent says could be right, or even to just pick up the phone and call him. My personal experience with the SSE is this is how they treat their members and forum participants too, and this is the biggest problem I have with them.

[PapaVic]

Patrick, honestly I suppose I was referring to the negativity regarding SSE in general and specifically regarding their board's deposits of seed in the Norwegian seed bank.

You began this thread with a message that includes the following advice from you:

Oct 11, 2010 6:15:07 GMT -5 PatrickW said:

In particular, my advice is the following:

If you are not now a member of the SSE, don’t join.

Your money and other efforts won’t go to supporting the right things.

If you are already a member of the SSE, contact them via letter or email to demand the following:

Recovery of the SSE member’s seed collection from Svalbard and the resignation of board members Amy Goldman, Cary Fowler and Neil Hamilton.

As pointed out in the board's letter found at the link that I provided, if you have donated or sold any seed to SSE in the past, you may request that that seed be returned to you.

Furthermore, I ask you and other members of the forum to consider and reply to the board's allegations regarding the state of the seed collection at SSE's facilities at the time Kent Whealy was discharged:

*A third of the seed collection consisted of only one packet of seeds, with no back-up or “safety duplication” anywhere.

*Only 15% were in back-up “black box” storage at the USDA, and the viability of their seeds was unknown.

*2,000 varieties were still in their original envelopes mixed together in Rubbermaid tubs instead of being placed in high-grade packets.

*1/4 of the collection had damaged packaging.

*Many packets contained visibly diseased, undeveloped, or unclean seed.

*Regenerated seeds – with harvest dates going back seven years – were stored in non-moisture-proof containers in out-of-the-way places, without temperature and humidity controls.

*1/3 of SSE’s seed collection hadn’t been regenerated in more than 10 years.

*2,000 accessions had simply gone missing.

*SSE’s historic apple orchard was in trouble with as many as 200 trees dying over the preceeding decade, with more were at risk due to shortcomings including the need for wider tree spacing, better rootstocks, and smarter use of plantable ground within the orchard.

*Fruit tree pruning had been neglected.

*The seed collection freezer – SSE’s actual genebank (which should be set at -18 degrees C) – had stopped working on five separate occasions. with many seed packets damaged and water everywhere.

*In several instances, the freezer was out of commission for days or weeks.

*Kent Whealy implied that the SSE seed collection, numbering more or less 25,000 accessions, was alive and well, and being regenerated – or grown out for fresh seed – on a 10-year rotation. Yet the board discovered that seed regeneration grow-outs had never approached 10% of the collection size during the previous 15 years, and there were many years when the actual seed regenerated was less than 5%.

The board's list of issues with Kent's management of the collection may be alarming to members who donate seed and $35 annual dues to maintain the collection. Yes, it may alarm them enough to discontinue membership unless the board can assure members that these shortcomings and neglect have been reversed. Right?

Have there been sufficient indications that the facilities are improved and now adequate to house the collection? Seems I recall they constructed new facilities at Decorah to address these concerns and as a back-up have deposited germplasm in the Norway seed bank.

Is there nothing possitive in all the corrections and improvements that the board has attempted in the past 2 years since discharging Kent Whealy?

And really, folks, what would you do if you found a historic seed collection in such a state of neglect as described in the board's letter?


pv

[PatrickW]

Hi PV,

You make a lot of good points here, and there's too much to say all at once, so I'll probably get back to some of these points later after some others have said some things.

You are right. I did miss this line buried deep in the SSE board response:

The collection consists primarily of seeds received through unrestricted donations, but some were purchased from commercial sources. The seeds belong to SSE, but SSE doesn’t own any intellectual property rights in those seeds. If donors request the return of seeds, Seed Savers Exchange complies with pleasure.

This isn't really totally clear, and they don't say anything with respect to seeds already deposited at Svalbard, but it is a positive statement nonetheless.

One of the problems with all of this is trying to compare Kent Whealy's accomplishments with those of the current SSE board. Who did more, Kent Whealy by co-founding the SSE or the board by rescuing the seed collection? The truth is you can't make this kind of comparison. Both sides of the argument are right.

While seed storage is very important, one of the problems I have with all of this is how this collection of seeds is going to be used and the inability of the SSE to make their collection available to their members in a useful way. In my opinion, what's far more important than storing seeds is getting them into people's gardens and farms. It doesn't do us any good if we save this huge collection of seeds for the next generation, if the knowledge surrounding those seeds, together with heirloom gardening, seed saving and amateur plant breeding is all lost.

If there's a nuclear holocaust tomorrow, how and by who are those seeds in Svalbard going to be used? Or the SSE collection?

If you look at the USDA GRIN collection, at least all of us can order seeds from there. Not only that, you can search on their webpage for specific varieties in a number of ways, and most of their collection is always available.

How about the SSE? Well, as they grow things out, they offer them in the Yearbook for that year. Usually these listing come with very little information, and can't really be used by anyone. Certainly if you're a serious plant breeder, there's little practical use to be made from the SSE's collection right now.

On the other hand, if there is a strong comeback of the culture of heirloom gardening, farming and breeding, and the SSE's collection were lost in it's entirety, it could be regenerated over time. First there would be the varieties in general circulation now, that could be recollected, then other genebanks could be looked at, then breeding activities could be restarted. Some historical aspects of the collection would be lost, but a new collection that was 'as good' could be recreated, and the new collection would even have the advantage that it was more suited to modern climates. But this could only happen if the culture of seed saving were kept alive.

In many ways you have to accept maintaining a collection like the SSE is impossible. It's always growing, and it's impossible to determine what's junk and what's not. If they truly save every tomato ever created and listed by a member, just what percentage of nonsense is this going to include? Is there really a benefit for the next generation to save 10,000 tomato varieties? How are they going to grow them all out and evaluate them? By definition, the SSE collection will just keep growing and getting even more out of hand. What's almost a more important way of deciding what to preserve, is what people are growing in their gardens right now, and this doesn't need to be preserved because it's already in people's gardens! Isn't this true with our own seed collections and garden too, don't we discard old seed each year without necessarily worrying about saving it all?

In many ways I think you could say Kent Whealy did far more to get people interested in heirloom gardening again, and motivate them to save and share their seeds than the current SSE board has ever done. There are a lot of reasons why this is far more important.

Anyway PV, in all of this I don't mean to say you are wrong, because you aren't. The SSE seed collection is very important, and while I wasn't there to see what was going on, it's reasonable to assume what the board says about it being neglected is probably true. This isn't a good thing. It is a very complicated subject though.

[PapaVic]

And Patrick, I'm not saying you are wrong to be sceptical, apprehensive, cautionary, whatever, about SSE's current administration. And I'm certainly not belittling Kent Whealy's accomplishments or his dedication to preservation of heritage cultivars, cattle, fruit trees, whatever else.

I just think the issue at hand, or at least the thrust of the conversation in this thread, is the truthfulness of Kent's allegations regarding SSE's seed donations to Svalbard, whether that seed donation exposes heritage cultivars to any more or less danger of extinction or imminent patenting, and whether in fact there is a more appropriate means of preserving the same seeds elsewhere and otherwise.

As to the latter issue, you seem to feel the seeds should be made more available to a wider audience of gardeners, and with that I cannot argue. However, I don't agree that housing them at USDA GRIN is anymore beneficial to home gardeners, as last time I sent a request, I was denied base on not being a professional breeder or bona fide researcher.

Furthermore, there seems to be problems with purity and viability of seeds at GRIN as experienced by several people I know who have obtained seeds via USDA GRIN. So, their system isn't any more reliable as regards accessibility and reliability than SSE Yearbook, all things considered.

Your and others' contention that Internet seed trading, by whatever source - eBay or gardening forums, etc. - is a much more open and egalitarian means of obtaining seeds. But while I've gotten many wonderful, unusual, rare and delightful varieties by trades, I've also gotten a good measure of dirty seeds, poorly extracted and badly stored seeds, low germination, diseases I never had in my garden, and lots of off types. Same goes for a few of the basement type seed vending operations.

So, no system is perfect. And many systems and sources are quite unreliable and shaky. My point was only that coming to conclusions on sparse information often results in snap judgments that are less accurate than more well informed opinions.

Now, do I wholly disagree with you? Hell no! Do I make snap judgments and come to poorly informed opinions? Hell yes! Have I made decisions about SSE before hearing the entire story. Yep. I did not send in my dues last year and did not send in my Yearbook listings for 2011 either. Of course it would've been nice if SSE administration had addressed all the concerns earlier and provided the information in a more timely fashion.

But you and I are only two former members. Apparently their membership has increased remarkably in the past 2 years. Good for them.

Meanwhile, I've found ways to share my seeds with far more people now than I ever did via SSE Yearbook. Just sayin' ... I like to have more info and less prejudgment on all issues. And that's not just preservation and seed sharing. After all, what just happened in the past election is absolute proof that people will make dumb judgment calls based on sparse or false information.


pv

[flowerpower]

I read through some of those letters yesterday. The one about the seed storage I found quite interesting.

If they are growing out 10% of the seed stock each yr, how come no one noticed totes of seed just lying around? Was Kent the only one with access? I highly doubt that. I'm sure any board member could have asked to see the collection. Pretty sad when not one person at Seed Savers could find time to check on the seeds they are "saving". You'd think the seed collection would be highest on their priority list.

[PatrickW]

I wonder if anyone noticed the fruit trees weren't being pruned...

[PapaVic]

The letter from the board leaves the strong impression that staff were aware of both the need for pruning in the orchard and the neglect of the seed collection, but failed to bring it to anyone's attention for fear of retribution from Whealy. How true that is, who but the staff and Whealy really know?

"How is it, you ask, that the SSE Board didn’t know what was happening? The answers are simple. Kent Whealy is very adept at convincing others that he is trustworthy. And Kent was totally in charge. Until 2006 when he voluntarily resigned from the Board, he was simultaneously employed as Executive Director (the top company officer and head of the staff) and he served as President of the Board (the top Director and head of the Board). Kent’s power was entrenched and concentrated. He set the agendas, funneled the information, and told the Board what he wanted the Board to know. He kept the rest of the story from us. Kent was aware of problems, but he forbade the staff from speaking about them to us. He controlled our information for years. But that didn’t work so well after 2006. The information really started flowing after his termination." [Quoted from the Board's Letter]

[PatrickW]

I find it pretty hard to imagine no one noticed the fruit trees not being pruned -- because the staff didn't tell them! I would think most visitors would have noticed this too. Also, if you look at Glenn Drowns letter, who is an advisor, it's pretty clear he was aware of things for a long time.

If Kent was in conflict with the board, and was also in charge of the staff, it would be a pretty logical thing to do to just tell them not to talk to the board. This would just be a sensible way to avoid unnecessary conflict and discussion. It's what I would have done.

The fact that I don't see many staff discussing things suggests to me they aren't really free to talk now about what happened either. Anyone else see any staff talking about this in discussion forums?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Nov 17, 2010 11:10:59 GMT -5 PapaVic said:

*SSE’s historic apple orchard was in trouble with as many as 200 trees dying over the preceeding decade

All I have to say about any of this is....

...YAWN...

A huge orchard lost 20 trees a year...

...YAWN... ...YAWN... and more YAWN

[flowerpower]

"And Kent was totally in charge. Until 2006 when he voluntarily resigned from the Board, he was simultaneously employed as Executive Director (the top company officer and head of the staff) and he served as President of the Board (the top Director and head of the Board). Kent’s power was entrenched and concentrated"

What's that old saying? "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"

I can understand why people put their full trust in Kent to keep things running smoothly. They considered him a friend. And the SSE was his baby. You'd think he would do his best to help it flourish.

People who are or were employed at the farm won't badmouth the SSE. I'm sure they need the jobs in that area. Big mouths can be a bad thing in a small community.