Cargando…

Gene Banks, Seed Libraries, and Vegetable Sanctuaries: The Cultivation and Conservation of Heritage Vegetables in Britain, 1970–1985

Individual seed saving and exchange are considered important components of contemporary efforts to conserve crop genetic diversity that ramify at local, regional, and global scales. Yet the very fact that the contributions of these activities to conservation need to be made explicit by seed savers a...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Curry, Helen Anne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6999659/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32051769
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cuag.12239
_version_ 1783493948887531520
author Curry, Helen Anne
author_facet Curry, Helen Anne
author_sort Curry, Helen Anne
collection PubMed
description Individual seed saving and exchange are considered important components of contemporary efforts to conserve crop genetic diversity that ramify at local, regional, and global scales. Yet the very fact that the contributions of these activities to conservation need to be made explicit by seed savers and those who study them indicates that the practices of seed saving and exchange may not immediately be recognized as conservation‐oriented activities. This article investigates why and how individual seed saving came to be aligned with a broader conservation agenda in Britain through a historical examination of the promotion of seed saving by the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) in the 1970s and 1980s. It demonstrates how several HDRA initiatives that aimed to preserve vegetable diversity also re‐inscribed British gardeners’ ordinary labor as conservation work. This historical study complements sociological and ethnographic studies, highlighting the role of a prominent organization in creating pathways for individuals to engage in local, national, and international conservation through seed saving. It also serves as a reminder that the connections between these activities had to be made explicit—that is, that there was (and is) work involved in connecting individual acts of seed saving to conservation outcomes at different scales.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6999659
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher John Wiley and Sons Inc.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-69996592020-02-10 Gene Banks, Seed Libraries, and Vegetable Sanctuaries: The Cultivation and Conservation of Heritage Vegetables in Britain, 1970–1985 Curry, Helen Anne Cult Agric Food Environ Special Issue Articles Individual seed saving and exchange are considered important components of contemporary efforts to conserve crop genetic diversity that ramify at local, regional, and global scales. Yet the very fact that the contributions of these activities to conservation need to be made explicit by seed savers and those who study them indicates that the practices of seed saving and exchange may not immediately be recognized as conservation‐oriented activities. This article investigates why and how individual seed saving came to be aligned with a broader conservation agenda in Britain through a historical examination of the promotion of seed saving by the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) in the 1970s and 1980s. It demonstrates how several HDRA initiatives that aimed to preserve vegetable diversity also re‐inscribed British gardeners’ ordinary labor as conservation work. This historical study complements sociological and ethnographic studies, highlighting the role of a prominent organization in creating pathways for individuals to engage in local, national, and international conservation through seed saving. It also serves as a reminder that the connections between these activities had to be made explicit—that is, that there was (and is) work involved in connecting individual acts of seed saving to conservation outcomes at different scales. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019-11-26 2019-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6999659/ /pubmed/32051769 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cuag.12239 Text en © 2019 The Authors. Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Anthropological Association. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Special Issue Articles
Curry, Helen Anne
Gene Banks, Seed Libraries, and Vegetable Sanctuaries: The Cultivation and Conservation of Heritage Vegetables in Britain, 1970–1985
title Gene Banks, Seed Libraries, and Vegetable Sanctuaries: The Cultivation and Conservation of Heritage Vegetables in Britain, 1970–1985
title_full Gene Banks, Seed Libraries, and Vegetable Sanctuaries: The Cultivation and Conservation of Heritage Vegetables in Britain, 1970–1985
title_fullStr Gene Banks, Seed Libraries, and Vegetable Sanctuaries: The Cultivation and Conservation of Heritage Vegetables in Britain, 1970–1985
title_full_unstemmed Gene Banks, Seed Libraries, and Vegetable Sanctuaries: The Cultivation and Conservation of Heritage Vegetables in Britain, 1970–1985
title_short Gene Banks, Seed Libraries, and Vegetable Sanctuaries: The Cultivation and Conservation of Heritage Vegetables in Britain, 1970–1985
title_sort gene banks, seed libraries, and vegetable sanctuaries: the cultivation and conservation of heritage vegetables in britain, 1970–1985
topic Special Issue Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6999659/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32051769
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cuag.12239
work_keys_str_mv AT curryhelenanne genebanksseedlibrariesandvegetablesanctuariesthecultivationandconservationofheritagevegetablesinbritain19701985