Seeds of the future

Saving crop seeds when the designer-creations of big seed companies are readily available may seem like the esoteric pastime of a nostalgic horticulturalist. The erosion of plant varieties, however, means the practice has become a global necessity. Anita Hayes of the Irish Seed Saver Association is preserving a gene pool to ensure the continuing evolution and well-being of Irish crops - a largely unhindered process of thousands of years.

With her husband, the traditional musician Tommy Hayes, she is enriching a hillside with a stunning variety of fruit and vegetables. From Capparoe outside Scariff, in Co Clare, the seeds of a myriad of varieties - some exotic, others bred over time to thrive in the Irish landscape - are passed on to fellow seed savers in attempt to restore dwindling varieties.

A native of Ohio, she is acutely conscious of the decline of agricultural resources, even if grocery stores stocked with blinding arrays of products suggest otherwise. She witnessed the demise in her home state of seed-saving family farms; the time of home-grown vegetables and apple pie left to cool on the verandah eliminated in the mistaken belief there was oil under their ground.

Tipperary Turnip, Cut and Come Kale and Delaway Cabbage are undergoing small but significant regeneration in defiance of the global decline of crop varieties. On a mere few acres last year the Hayes planted numerous varieties of tomato, potato, cabbages, kale and apples. "Each year, we ask ourselves what seeds do we need to save," she explains - as they check those in storage to see if they remain in good condition.

With the backing of FAS, they hope to set-up a larger facility nearby with more extensive seed storage capability; the one outstanding requirement to infuse the project is £20,000 to match EU LEADER funding, should it be approved.

GM crops represent the end of a long, tortuous road, Anita Hayes says. The "Green Revolution" of the 1970s and exportation of hybridised seed to the developing countries came with "honest intention to feed the world". The high inputs necessary were free at first. The growing of traditional varieties adapted to local conditions plummeted as farmers found they could not afford the inputs. The need to maintain diverse varieties then dawned, and a network of plant gene banks was set up. Non-governmental organisations started seed-saving, too - through a "network of gardens" - as gene banks do not cover all eventualities. Anita Hayes likens her operation to a "living gene bank"; an on-land operation which needs a link to the associated expertise of purpose-built gene banks such as those in UCD and TCD. "Seeds are not going to evolve in fridges," she adds. And that applies to species of Irish apple, which she has a particular interest in.

The squeeze on traditional seedsaving and passing-on of strong breeds, has resulted from royalty regulations, restrictive patents and the EU's sea-change in attitude. It used to acknowledge that farmers had a right to save their own seed. Then it was their privilege. "We don't have that privilege any more. From right to privilege is an enormous leap. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in seed takes the process completely out of the hands of farmers."

The "terminator seed", which has an in-built self-destruct mechanism after one growing season, is the end point along that road, she argues, signalling final "corporate control over what we eat". Before GM crops, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation concluded that 75 per cent of the genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost since the beginning of this century. "With 70 million acres of GM crops planted last year, how much more is gone?"