Seed Saver's Exchange 2014 Yearbook

[oxbowfarm]

Just got the 2014 Yearbook today. Definitely raised my eyebrows at some of the changes.

1. The Flower and Herb Exchange has been consolidated into the Yearbook
2. They've added some legume categories and consolidated others (Barley)
3. They are really pushing the online yearbook, presaging eliminating the printed book?
4. 96 fewer listed members than 2013, 13% reduction to 598
5. Unique varieties are up 517, which looks great, till you take into account point #1
6. The SSE Home Farm is far and away the largest lister- 2,579, the only other lister to break 1000 is a tomato collector
7. Most of Scatterseeds' strong categories are impoverished, except for possibly potatoes.

A lot of these moves I can understand in light of decreasing participation in the exchange. What bothers me is that AFAIK, none of these changes where ever communicated to the membership beforehand. There is also no mention of these changes in the yearbook itself, even on page vii under the heading "Changes to the 2014/15 Yearbook". What happened to folks who signed up for the Flower and Herb exchange as well as the Yearbook? Did they get a refund? Are they just hoping people won't notice?

All in all I see an organization that appears to be in decline, is actively wallpapering over the cracks, and is attempting to avoid calling any attention to the man behind the curtain.

[zeedman]

There was a notification that the Flower & Herb Exchange would be consolidated... can't remember if it was a letter or an email. As I recall, it was sent out late in 2013.

Some of the other changes are just a mystery, especially the re-organization of long-time categories. Adzuki bean, for example, is a new category - with only 8 entries. It would have been better left in the "Misc. Legume" section, where it has been since the beginning. Yardlong beans (also formerly Misc. Legume) were given their own category also, when if anything, they should have been moved into Cowpeas. Pretty much all of the Misc. sections were broken out into small categories of their own, such as Blackberry and Raspberry. Yet bunching onions are now consolidated with all of the previous Onion/other listings into an ambiguous "Onion" category... go figure. IMO, this re-organization makes no sense. SSE unilaterally changed categories for many listings, so the listed members will now need to change all of their records to match.

If you think the print version is confusing, you should see the online version. All common beans, for example, are jumbled together, regardless of their listed category (bush or pole, snap, dry, or wax). Same goes for tomatoes (regardless of color) peppers (regardless of shape, heat, or species) and squash (regardless of species). The printable online request form was only added last week. There are other aspects of the site that need further explanation, such as the fact that "conversations" end up being listed as "orders". Furthermore, all of the historical data is now missing. It's a mess. The only good change I see is that listed members will (supposedly) be able to add & edit listings in the online Yearbook year round, such as adding photos.

Oxbow, I agree with your point #5. I think at least part of this reorganization is intended to cover up the loss of listed members, and the corresponding reduction of unique offerings. As to the the lack of notification & the failure to note these changes on the "Change" page, well, I guess SSE management didn't want to call attention to them. Truly sad, for those who love what SSE used to represent.

[oxbowfarm]

For me, they can modify the categories all they want, but as a user of the yearbook, it makes it difficult as the listers weren't informed, and thus did not modify the wording of their listings to reflect the changed categories. With barley this is particularly apparent. Naked/hulless barley was much more popular with seed savers than common barley, but many of the hulless barley listings don't mention that they are hulless, why bother since they are already going to be listed in the hulless category? But now you have to go back to older yearbooks to cross reference the barley listings if you are looking for a naked barley. A little notice would have eliminated that problem.

Obviously I'm in a minority of the membership, being someone more interested in barley and turnips than tomatoes. Given that you could justifiably call the Yearbook the Tomato Savers Exchange Yearbook, the barley category is not a big priority.

[PatrickW]

One of the things these numbers don't show is the quality of listed member the SSE is losing. Many of those leaving are among the most senior and important.

Here in Europe, the opposite is happening. There are about 40 organizations like the US SSE, many of them founded by Americans and modelled specifically after the SSE. Arche Noah (Noah's Ark) in Austria is probably the largest, with 13,000 members. This is probably larger than the SSE, all by itself. Many of these organizations are now experiencing sharp growth, some doubling or tripling year on year.

I think commercial influences really ruined the SSE.

[Leenstar]

This forum has largely replaced the SSE for me. The varieties offered in the catalog have been decreasing for the past several years. When I joined the SSE, I decided I was too small time and didn't have the space to offer seeds as a listed member. I have watched though as the listed members list grew smaller every year. I find the year book a mess to begin with. I am disappointed with the on-line catalog too as it doesn't feel very user friendly. Working through the SSE system has become cumbersome relative to the seed swapping through this site.

[paquebot]

I hadn't received my copy yet when I read this thread. I imagined it half filled with flowers and herbs. Got it today and table of contents lists about 20 of those. Other than sunflowers, I don't see the rest of them taking up much ink. If there had previously been a separate book for them, it must have been little more than a pamphlet. Overall, only gained about 20 pages over the year before.

Martin

[oxbowfarm]

Well, my point is that the entire yearbook appears to be reformatted to conceal that it actually has much less content than last years or any yearbook in two decades. It is rather difficult to compare the two since they've effectively reshuffled the categories. You could do it, but it would be a tedious lot of flipping in two separate yearbooks. The entire thing seems like an attempt to misdirect attention from the fact that there are nearly 100 less listed members than one year ago and the 2014 numbers include the listed members that had previously only been listed on the flower and herb exchange. Absent the F&H members, the drop would be larger than the 96 they are claiming. And 598 listed members is the fewest since 1986. Does the SSE care about that drop? Seems like an existential crisis to me. Why aren't they talking about it? Why aren't they recruiting unlisted members to list?

[paquebot]

Oxbow, apparent valid claims have been presented here with questions which only SSE staff could answer, how about having the courage to repeat your original post from here on the SSE forum? You are an active member there and it will take you no longer to vent your displeasure there instead of sniping from here.

Martin

[oxbowfarm]

Touché Martin. That's a valid criticism. I suppose the main reason is that HG is where I hang out. Have never found the SSE forum to be interesting or responsive. But I just posted an amalgam of my post here a few minutes ago. It will be interesting to see the response.

[Walk]

I suppose that some of the lack of listings could be related to weather impacts on crops all around the country (heat, cold, drought, floods, etc.) But the reorganization of the online listings is hardly excusable. The SSE used to have great archive data on past listings, which has now disappeared. And the new categories have made searching for an item impossible. And from what I've seen, the listings are not even alphabetically arranged within the categories. I've posted my concerns on the SSE forum. As a lifetime member since the mid 1980's, any loss of data is of grave concern to me.

[paquebot]

Ox, on a 20-rung ladder, you just went from the 5th to the 15th. Always better to light a single candle than to curse the dark.

Walk, big difference than when you started is the Internet. Commercial sources were limited to mostly regional companies with limited numbers of varieties or large companies all with mostly the same. Now anyone with a half-acre of land can start up an Internet company with less than $50 investment in seeds. If not that way, they go E-Bay.

There's also the matter of just how many people would rather "let George do it". It's a hassle to grow things and keep them pure when so few people want them. 10+ years ago, there was a certain SSE member who would verbally kill you if you said a bad word about SSE on any forum. It was made to sound like you could live well just from seed requests. There was even a claim of a family farm being saved just by tomato seeds. Same person claimed that many members only listed one or two varieties just so they could purchase from others at the lower listed price. But when asked how many seeds to save per variety, not even a hint. Most who asked became members but left after a few years of maybe getting $10 in return for the membership fees. That's not the fault of SSE or anyone involved in its operations. It's what the market is now as compared to when SSE was founded.

Martin

[oxbowfarm]

Feb 11, 2014 23:51:43 GMT -5 paquebot said:

Ox, on a 20-rung ladder, you just went from the 5th to the 15th. Always better to light a single candle than to curse the dark.

Martin

Love you too Martin. I freely admit I never read the Heritage Farm Companions, neither do I actually recycle them, my wife does responsible things like that, and the HFC are too fancy looking to be junk mail so she saves them. I just found Spring and Harvest 2013. No mention of these changes anywhere. Was it in Summer? Doubt it.

[paquebot]

Like Grant has just said, the SSE committee is comprised of SSE members and are open for suggestions. They are not executive corporate outsiders hired to run SSE. Just as in any other large organization, not all SSE members are created from the same cookie cutter and thus it can not be one-size-fits-all. What may seem vitally important to a few members may be trivial junk to the majority and v.v.

The point I made before about people using the SSE Yearbook as a start to their own Internet seed company is quite true. One is even truthful enough to admit it. Here's where one can get my own Paquebot Roma without belonging to the SSE:

sherckseeds.com/pages/seeds/tomatoes/paquebot-roma-tomato/

Martin

[oxbowfarm]

Who cares if someone used the Yearbook to start a seed company? Isn't the point of the SSE to preserve the varieties for the future. If someone expanded from being a seed saver to creating a business built around heirloom varieties, I would consider that a positive outcome. It is also completely irrelevant to the fact that the SSE completely restructured the yearbook with basically zero notice. If there was a mention in one of the SSE publications or via social media of these changes upcoming it was extremely subtle. Clearly SSE can do no wrong in your eyes. I see an organization that was once great rapidly declining to irrelevance. That would be a waste.

[steev]

I think if one wants to control who gets one's seeds and what they do with them, one needs to get some sort of signed usage-contract. Oh, wait, that's already being done by some corporate entities.