In Canada, three-quarters of all the crop varieties that existed before the 20th century are extinct. And, of the remaining quarter, only 10 percent are available commercially from Canadian seed companies (the remainder are held by gardeners and families). Over 64 percent of the commercially held seeds are offered by only one company; if those varieties are dropped, the seeds may be lost.
That’s the reason Caroline and about 100 other indigenous farmers and gardeners—along with students and community members—gathered in March on the White Earth reservation in Northern Minnesota to share knowledge, stories, and, of course, seeds.
A recent article by a prominent Canadian writer suggested that agriculture in Canada began with the arrival of Europeans. Caroline had to ask her, “What about all that agriculture before then?” Caroline is a committed grower in the effort to recover northern Ojibwe corn varieties that once grew l00 miles north of Winnipeg—the northernmost known corn crop in the world. “That’s some adaptable corn,” said one of the conference participants said. “And,” added Betsy McDougall of Turtle Mountain, “We Ojibwes, Metis, and Crees must have been really good farmers.”
Indigenous farmers from the Winnebago reservation in Nebraska shared their struggles with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) encroaching on their fields, threatening to alter and potentially sterilize open-pollinated corn. While native corn varieties are richer in protein and much more resilient to climate change, they are not immune to GMO contamination. The advice shared amongst farmers was to eat from the edges and save seed from the middle, where corn is least likely to be affected by cross-pollination.
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-05-13/keepers-seeds
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