Saving More Than Seeds: Practices and Politics of Seed Saving

by Catherine Phillips

Saving More Than Seeds advances understandings of seed-people relations, with particular focus on seed saving. The practice of reusing and exchanging seeds provides foundation for food production and allows humans and seed to adapt together in dynamic socionatural conditions. But the practice and its practitioners are easily taken for granted, even as they are threatened by neoliberalisation. Combining original ethnographic research with investigation of an evolving corporate seed order, this book reveals seed saving not only as it occurs in fields and gardens but also as it associates with genebanking, genetic engineering, intellectual property rights, and agrifood regulations. Drawing on diverse social sciences literatures, Phillips illustrates ongoing practices of thinking, feeling, and acting with seeds, raising questions about what seed-people relations should accomplish and how different ways of relating might be pursued to change collective futures.

286 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Melina Roise · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most well developed story of the ethical, political, & economic effects of indivualized seed saving efforts. However, Phillips fails to acknowledge the spiritual and economic importance of seed saving to Indigenous and other communities of color... which is essential in this discussion. Good for a Canadian history lesson on seed patenting.