‘How do we chose to shape our future? Its path is held in seed.’ Crystine, Uprising Seeds.
Someone recently asked me why I do what I do – it’s a question I have been asking many people on this trip but it was the first time someone had returned the question. I do this work, I think, because of love. A love for all the living things around me, and a heartfelt desire to remind others that we are a just a thread in this complex tapestry of life. The day after I was asked that question, I opened the front door first thing in the morning to the presence of a young coyote. I sat quietly for several minutes watching her intently sniffing around the edges of the tree line, until she trotted off into the undergrowth. It provided an unanticipated moment of calm – a fleeting connection with another living creature. The dominant narrative in our modern world is that humans can exist in isolation, that the natural world is just the backdrop to our own activities. But everything lives in relationship to everything else, and we are no exception. I often worry about the unfolding consequences of this disconnect. How do we remind people, how do we begin to heal these relationships? Growing food and stewarding seed is a path I have found to restore that connection for myself, and in sharing the joy I find in this work and illuminating the beauty and intelligence of other living communities, I hope to inspire these affectionate alliances in others.
On this journey around the Pacific Northwest, I have met so many incredible humans who are also navigating this path, all in their own unique ways. To be in relationship with seed feels like old knowledge. To steward seed is a way of re-entangling ourselves with the rhythms of life, and each other. Uprising Seeds are a seed company I have followed from afar for some time. Their love for their work seemed tangible, as was their awareness of it being part of a wider picture, and a conversation starter:
‘My hope has always been that, in this work, seeds will be a force of connectivity in our world. An opportunity to learn about and from one another, a way to connect with the cycles of the seasons and our places, and a way to connect our past and future with out present selves.’ (Brian, exert from their January 2023 blog)
Uprising Seeds are based in Bellingham, WA, just south of the border between the US and Canada. Crystine Goldberg and Brian Campbell started their seed business in 2007, inspired to help increase the availability of quality organic and open pollinated varieties adapted to maritime northwest climate. They have a strong focus on the culinary qualities of the crops that they grow. It is this, and the relationship - the food stories, social equity and cultural connections - that feels at the essence of their work.
Uprising Seeds are currently farming on 5 acres, with 3 of these in annual production on a rotational basis. They grow the majority of their seed on site, working with just a handful of other farmers who grow on contract for them. Their catalogue is expansive, with hundreds and hundreds of varieties of vegetables and flowers, and between 125-150 of these are grown out each year at their farm. Defining their work as stewardship, they perform variety maintenance and selection with deep care. I arrived to spend the week with Brian and Crystine right at the start of harvest season and was able to assist them with bringing in the first of this years seed crops. The fields at Uprising Seeds appear as a beautiful patchwork, hundreds of species of plants growing side by side. Lettuce plants rise up tall, bursting from their compact forms sending out clusters of florets, just starting to form those feathery parachutes that - if left too long - will float off in the slightest of breezes. Neighbouring these were the brassicas and pole beans, and row upon row of tomatoes, all selected primarily for their delicious taste, and of course their stories. The first of the seed crops ripe and ready to harvest were several varieties of pea. We pulled these out of the ground, roots and all, and laid them out on large sheets of woven fabric to dry down in the July sunshine.
As well as helping out in the field, I was given a behind the scenes look at their seed cleaning equipment and warehouse space. Deliberately keeping their work at human scale, the team mostly use screens, box fans and the obligatory Winnow Wizard (number 13 no less!) to clean their seed crops. Their warehouse, situated a few miles from the farm, houses the bulk of their seed collection, and Brian and Crystine have a great team of employees helping them tend to and share their extensive seed catalogue.
Uprising Seeds don’t necessarily see themselves as plant breeders, although they are definitely dabbling in several breeding projects. Their intention is to steward a diversity of crops that are relevant to themselves and their community.
Brian - ‘The culture, the relationship is essential. We can breed all of the new novel varieties we desire, but unless they really mean something to people, then will they stick? Biodiversity with lasting impact is borne of deep relationship with place and community. It’s not just about breeders or farmers. There’s no technological fix (to our biodiversity crisis) without a cultural shift in how we relate collectively to food and farming.’
Crystine - ‘Diversity cannot be created by an individual.’
A common thread in many conversations throughout my trip so far is that the radical possibilities of seed lies beyond their genetics. Resilience can be found not only in genetic diversity, but also in the connection that comes from sharing seed, from the act of cooking and sharing a meal together. In cooperation and collective care of crops. In their stories. Can we inspire these relationships by shifting plant stewardship as not just held by the ‘experts’, but also back into the hands of the community at large?
Crystine – ‘The interesting part too is we do have diversity, it’s just who’s voices are elevated. And who’s experiences are looked upon as relevant? And so the diversity is there 100%, it’s just who is considered some sort of hypothetical majority or voice that is deemed worthy of listened to and being celebrated. That’s the thing, it’s all part of it.’
Brian and Crystine’s own stewardship is centred around the culinary use of the crops that they grow and the meals that can be created from each individual variety. They have been collaborating with Lane and the Culinary Breeding Network for many years, exploring the possibilities that emerge from cultivating this community and collaboration around food.
Brian – ‘In my head there’s not a separation between agriculture and food culture, its just a continuum, when we plant seeds of things I have the dish in my head that I’m looking forward to. There are lots of things that we plant that there’s a single thing that I really enjoy making maybe once a year, I feel this connection with this one thing, that’s why I grow it because there’s this one thing that I want to eat. It’s a seasonal thing.’
One of their many exciting collaborations is the Gusto Italiano Project. Born primarily from a mutual love of radicchio and a desire to further establish it as an anchor of the autumn and winter produce season in the PNW, Uprising Seeds and the Culinary Breeding Network partnered with innovative plant breeders Smarties Bio in Italy to offer the largest collection of radicchio, endive and escarole outside of Italy. Sharing culinary and cultural context to the seeds, growing information and recipe ideas, they are working to create a shared community through the foods that they love.
As well as the glorious radicchio, when I asked Brian what crops he felt most connected to, he shared that they all had significance, but he did note several of the brassica varieties that they have been carefully stewarding for several years. From cabbages to cauliflowers, they have been working in reciprocity with these crops to adapt them to this region and offer varieties that will provide their community with luscious greens with many uses throughout the year.
And it's not all about the culinary aspect. Uprising Seeds also offer an extensive catalogue of flower seed. It seems some things they grow simply for the sheer beauty and joy that they bring. Flowers grown for their aesthetic value, and for all the other creatures that will benefit from their presence - almost beauty for beauty’s sake. The beds swelled with the delicate dusty grey blooms of ‘Amazing Grey’ shirley poppies, the sunset hues of ‘Orange Wonder’ snapdragon, and the impressive cones of Echinacea. Perhaps all this was to encourage those moments of pause, of connection with another living being, like that I experienced with the coyote.
Crystine – ‘It’s about noticing, 100% being aware and being present. Because if you’re not present then you’re not aware and you’re not noticing. We can’t all be present all the time and aware and noticing and all these lovely flowery things but that’s what keeps me moving, not only in the seed world, but that’s what keeps me alive, and I can’t imagine living this life without being constantly amazed... But it is a privilege to feel it as much as I do and I recognise that.’
Walking around the farm, a cacophony of colours, shapes, textures and life, I was certainly in awe. Uprising Seeds offer an abundant and diverse catalogue of seeds. All of their varieties are open pollinated, and there seems to be nothing proprietary about their stewardship.
Crystine, Brian and I discussed the endless generosity of plants – they are arguably the antithesis of the scarcity model of modern economics. They deliberately produce an abundance of seed to disperse it far and wide. We may try and be proprietary about the varieties we ‘create’, but they have other ideas. Crystine pointed out the irony that plants often use us – dispersing themselves on our clothes, on vehicles, in the postal system. We think we are in charge, when in fact, it’s a dual relationship, a conversation.
Crystine - ‘We don’t really know who is choosing who, and seed certainly transcends individual ownership.’
This wonderful seed farm has left a lasting impression on me, and much to reflect upon. Crystine, Brian and their family kindly welcomed me into their home for the week, and we had many thought-provoking conversations. Our chat meandering through many topics but most often coming back to this idea of relationship. What is apparent is that we need to be in relationship with these crops and assimilate them into our everyday lives and culture again for them, and diversity, to persist.
What happens when we shift from seeing seed as commodity, as just another farm input, to something like a member of our extended family, someone we could learn from? What if we make time to observe and listen to them, share a story or two, uplift and celebrate them? Perhaps then we could all be nourished in relationship with one another.