The Vegetable Seed Producers Network was a program organized by Seeds of Diversity and The Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security. The programs served two functions:
- To produce vegetable and specialty crop seeds according to industry best practices, which could then be pooled for bulk-scale supply to vegetable farmers, gardeners, and other growers, and
- To ensure that our seed collection remained viable and of the highest quality possible, by continually supplying fresh seeds to replenish seed stocks as required.
The project aimed to address the need for bulk scale production of vegetable and specialty crop seed in Canada. There is a strong demand for domestically produced seed, but most of the vegetable seed grown in Canada is sold in small packet sizes for gardeners. The next big step is to scale up production to provide farm-scale, bulk quantities.
Since 2015 our network has grown from 20 to 55 producers (and counting!). Participating farmers grow seed from this list of vegetables, and note their observations on standardized Crop Descriptor Forms. A sample of seeds is sent back to us and stored in Seeds of Diversity’s Seed Library in Hillsburgh, Ontario at Everdale, helping to keep a wide diversity of seeds in circulation and available to the public. The forms are sent back to us and posted so that others can learn from the observations each grower made about the crops.