Local Food Needs Local Seed: Increasing Production and Use of Locally Adapted Seed with a Farm to Community Network

View the project final report

Commodities

Practices

• Crop Production: seed saving, varieties and cultivars
• Education and Training: farmer to farmer, mentoring
• Farm Business Management: feasibility study
• Sustainable Communities: local and regional food systems, social networks

Although seed is one of the most essential inputs for farming, few farmers save their own. Seed is often seen as inexpensive, readily available, and easier to purchase than to produce. With the daily demands of running a farm, seed saving—an activity requiring specialized knowledge, time, and potential tradeoffs with market crops—rarely feels urgent or necessary.

This lack of incentive has left regional seed systems underdeveloped and vulnerable. The fragility of relying on consolidated external sources became clear in 2020, when seed companies struggled to meet demand, leaving growers without critical supplies. What if, instead, we had decentralized seed networks—resilient systems rooted in a diversity of farmers saving and sharing locally adapted seed, supported by communities that understand that local food depends on local seed?

Working Food is committed to building that vision. With over a decade of experience in seed saving, community outreach, and collaboration with farmers, seed companies, and nonprofit partners, we are well-positioned to support a resilient, regionally adapted seed system. Leveraging partnerships with local farmers, community organizations, and University of Florida faculty, this project advanced the concept of a "farm-to-community seed network." Our work aligns with recent research calling for increased investment in farmer training, diversified educational materials, and support for decentralized seed systems (Hubbard et al. 2022; Snyder et al. 2022).

This project focused on co-learning and mutual support between Working Food’s seed expert and three core market farmers in the Gainesville, Florida region. Together, we identified suitable crops, developed best practices for integrating seed production into market farming, and strengthened the foundation for a regional seed network. We produced peer-reviewed outreach materials in print, digital, and video formats to inspire broader adoption. Community engagement included farm field trips for youth and farmers, variety tastings, and a public demonstration day.

This work builds on existing momentum to grow a resilient, community-supported local food system—one that values seed as a shared, living resource that must be tailored to, and stewarded by the needs of local growers.

Overall Goal: To build capacity and inspiration of emerging seed growers to become long term seed stewards, while creating awareness and support from the general public about the importance of local food grown from local seed. 

Objectives:

1. Through mutual co-learning and ongoing engagement among market farmers and the experienced seed stewards, evaluate and document best practices for on-farm seed production that are likely to be adopted by farmers.
2. Create easily accessible and informative learning materials that will inspire and educate more farmers to consider seed stewardship as an essential practice. 
3. Publish and promote easily accessible, engaging, and diverse outreach materials and activities that use seed and food as a mechanism to deepen connections between farmers, urban ag communities, underserved communities, and the general public.