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Saving Seeds, Saving Culture: A CaseStudy of a Heritage Seed BankMichael S. Carolan aa Department of Sociology , Colorado State University , Fort Collins,Colorado, USAPublished online: 19 Jul 2007.

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Saving Seeds, Saving Culture: A Case Studyof a Heritage Seed Bank

MICHAEL S. CAROLAN

Department of Sociology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins,Colorado, USA

This article examines a heritage seed saving organization, the Seed Savers Exchange(SSE), a nonprofit seed bank in northeastern Iowa. To begin, I focus on how SSEconceives of seeds and nature more broadly. From here, the analysis moves to under-stand how these ‘‘ideas’’ of nature shape the materiality that is ultimately conserved.Next, the value statements of conservation are analyzed. All conservation policiesand practices rest upon normative assumptions about what type of nature ought tobe conserved. The final section sets out to detail what some of those value statementsare as they relate to SSE, and how they are used to instill within people similar com-mitments to conservation overall and seed saving in particular. When taken together,these three components—(1) conceptions of nature, (2) the materiality being con-served, and (3) the values embedded in all conservation practices—signify what Icall the ‘‘trialectic of conservation.’’

Keywords biodiversity, conservation, culture, genes, gene bank, knowledge, seedbank, values

I was walking around the newly built visitors’ center at the Seed Savers Exchange(SSE), a nonprofit seed bank in northeastern Iowa. It was near the end of whatwas my first day in the field collecting data. Near the back of the building, in a sep-arate room from the main area where they sell their seeds (among other merchan-dise), I came upon several art pieces of various fruits and vegetables. They werenot, however, like any fruits and vegetables that I had seen before. The two piecesof art that I remember were of outrageously deformed cantaloupes and watermelonwith bizarre speckled patterns. To my left stood a man and women who appeared tohave been in their 60s. Standing no more than 2 meters from me, they also gazedintently at these paintings. After a few seconds had lapsed, I overheard the followingconversation between them concerning the painting of an oddly shaped cantaloupe:

‘‘I haven’t seen one of these for darn near 50 years!’’ the man excitedly said to hiscompanion.

He continued, ‘‘I remember my grandparents used to grow this. God was itsweet. Now that brings back some memories.’’

With that, the women replied, ‘‘Now that you mentioned it, I think my parentsmight have raised it too.’’

Received 14 November 2005; accepted 3 September 2006.Address correspondence to Michael S. Carolan, Department of Sociology, B236 Clark,

Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1784, USA. E-mail: mcarolan@lamar.colostate.edu

Society and Natural Resources, 20:739–750Copyright # 2007 Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0894-1920 print/1521-0723 onlineDOI: 10.1080/08941920601091345

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After a minute or so had elapsed, and a couple more phrases exchanged, I over-heard the women proclaim, ‘‘Wouldn’t it be fun to try to grow these next year?’’ Andwith that, they walked to the seed display to, one can only assume, look for the seedsof this oddly shaped fruit.

I begin this article with this exchange because it represents the moment when Ifully began to appreciate all that SSE was working to conserve, which went beyondpurely materialistic ends. Rather than merely a container for genes, the seeds of SSErepresent a hybrid of sociocultural and biophysical components. Thus, in addition toa material heritage, closer inspection reveals SSE conserves cultural components aswell, which I was reminded of when I saw the aforementioned paintings and over-head the accompanying exchange.

As others have argued, the materiality of nature is shaped by, and in turnsshapes, cultural, social, and historical contexts (Bell 2004; Freudenburg et al.1995; Demeritt 1998). In this article, I build upon this literature by detailing howconstructions of nature shape how individuals associated with SSE practice conser-vation. In the pages that follow, I detail (1) the image of nature held at SSE, (2) thematerial nature conserved because of these constructions, and (3) the normativearguments mounted by SSE to give others reasons for why nature (as defined bySSE) should be conserved. These three components—our conceptions of nature,the materiality being conserved, and the values imbedded in all conservation debates,policies, and practices—signify, as I describe shortly, the ‘‘trialectic of conservation.’’

This article begins with a description of SSE and the methods used for interview-ing individuals from this site. The analysis starts with an examination of the practicestoward and conceptions about nature as they relate seeds, conservation, and so forthat SSE. I then explore where these ‘‘ideas’’ of nature (as they are referred to byCronon 1995) came from. Yet, rather than examining SSE through a solely socialconstructionist lens, I practice a more balanced approach: an approach that, inthe end, gives equal analytic attention to both the biophysical and socioculturalrealms (see, e.g., Carolan 2005a; 2005b; Dunlap and Catton 1994).

To this point, I will have addressed both epistemological (e.g., how we knownature) and ontological (e.g., the material nature this organization produces) issuesas they relate to SSE. To conclude, I speak to a third component of conservation thatis typically ignored by socioenvironmental scholars: that involving deontologicalarguments, which involves questions about how nature should look. Conservationis an inherently value laden activity, for it rests upon assumptions about what natureought to be conserved. All conservation policy and practices rest upon value judg-ments. At SSE, images, discourse, and space itself are shaped to convey a particularethical argument about why seeds should be conserved. This normative undercurrentof SSE is therefore highlighted and examined.

Setting the Stage

The Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) is located near the town of Decorah, IA, in the farnortheastern corner of the state. Founded in 1975, SSE is a nonprofit organizationthat both saves and sells ‘‘heirloom’’ fruit, vegetable, and flower seeds. On this 890-acre farm, which goes by the name of the ‘‘Heritage Farm,’’ one will find a diversegenetic legacy. There are 24,000 rare vegetable varieties, including about 4,000traditional varieties from Eastern Europe and Russia. In addition, SSE possessesapproximately 700 pre-1900 varieties of apples, which represent nearly every

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remaining pre-1900 variety left in existence (out of about 8,000 that once existed).Beyond that, they have approximately 80 Ancient White Park cattle (only about800 of these animals remain in the world).

Thus, the practices of SSE go far beyond that of a seed repository. For example,SSE sells its seeds (on site, through a catalogue, and via the Internet). It also educatesothers—through, for example, books, workshops, and lectures—on how to savetheir own seeds. The ‘‘bank’’ metaphor is therefore problematic as it applies toSSE. Like banks, on the one hand, there is a form of exchange taking place, in thatheirloom variety seeds are given to SSE to be propagated (like a form of interest).Unlike banks, however, SSE educates people on how to save their own seeds. Thebank metaphor also tends to imply a space that is centralized with fixed boundaries.SSE, conversely, is perhaps best conceptualized as the network of seed savers its helpsto unite and sustain, which arguably stretches around the world (more on thispoint later).

While without an explicit mission statement, one could glean from its web site astatement that comes quite close to summarizing its philosophy and purpose:

Seed Savers Exchange is a nonprofit organization that saves and sharesthe heirloom seeds of our garden heritage, forming a living legacy thatcan be passed down through generations. When people grow and saveseeds, they join an ancient tradition as stewards, nurturing our diverse,fragile, genetic and cultural heritage. Our organization is saving theworld’s diverse, but endangered, garden heritage for future generationsby building a network of people committed to collecting, conservingand sharing heirloom seeds and plants, while educating people aboutthe value of genetic and cultural diversity. (Seed Savers 2006)

This statement highlights the non-reductionist epistemology embraced at SSE,which sees value, for example, in genetic and cultural diversity. These ideas of naturealso shape, and are shaped by, arguments about why this nature should be conservedin the first place—such as to preserve a ‘‘living legacy that can be passed downthrough generations’’ and in doing this ‘‘join an ancient tradition as stewards.’’All of which, as I now detail, is of consequence in terms of all that is conservedwithin this space.

Collecting the Data

Data collection for this study began in the summer of 2004. Twenty-two interviewswere conducted between June and July. I spent seven nonconsecutive days at SSE.During each visit, I carefully observed the spatial arrangements of the site andhow people negotiated that arrangement. I also randomly approached visitors andasked if I could interview them as they walked from garden to garden or throughthe trail system open to them. In doing this, I was not only able to ‘‘interview’’ themin the traditional sense of the term, but this also allowed me to engage in a sort ofparticipant observation, whereby I participated with them as they engaged in thespatial surroundings of SSE and concomitantly made sense of the space aroundthem. Staff members were also interviewed, to educate myself about SSE and toget a sense of how the operators of SSE understood their efforts. During this phaseof data collection, individuals were asked questions related to what they understood

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the mission of SSE to be; their specific experiences with SSE; what was beingconserved at SSE; their own experiences with saving seeds; and the experiencesthey had with others involved with SSE.

After spending several months examining the data for themes about the knowl-edge (epistemology), materiality (ontology), and values (deontology) espoused atSSE, I reentered the field in the spring of 2005 to explore these themes further. Twoadditional visits were made to SSE during this time. During each, interviews were con-ducted in the same manner as those the previous summer, for a total of six additionalinterviews. While similar themes to those already described were investigated duringthis round of interviews, the focus of the questions was more precise in order toexplore specific concepts and ideas that emerged during the first round of interviews.

In all, 28 interviews were conducted: 6 staff and 22 visitors. The length of eachinterview spanned from 20 minutes to, in a few cases, slightly over an hour.On average, however, interviews lasted between 30 and 40 minutes.

Framing the Article Conceptually

As others have detailed, conceptions of nature are not pre-given, which is to say,when efforts are made to conserve nature, understandings of what this means candiverge greatly (Hannigan 1995; Macnaghten and Urry 1998). This represents theunderlying argument of the social constructivist literature within environmental soci-ology, which has tended to focus on the meanings associated with ecologicalphenomena and how these ‘‘nature frames’’ are contested and fluid. In short, socialconstructionism tends to analytically emphasize our ‘‘ideas’’ of nature. The ecologi-cal sciences, on the other hand, embrace a more materialist view. As such, their con-cern has less to do with these ‘‘ideas’’ and more to do with the actual changingmateriality that underlies these discursive constructs. It is important to understandthat while neither of these approaches is incorrect, each is, by itself, incomplete.While questions concerning our conceptions of nature can be bracketed from ques-tions of what nature is (in a material sense), they are ultimately mutually influencing.

The forthcoming analysis speaks to this mutual influence: to these constructionsof nature and the material assemblages these constructions bring forth. Yet, in doingthis, we also find that institutional and social arrangements shape not only howgroups engage with nature but the values and commitments that underlie theseengagements. Thus, in addition to involving epistemological (conceptions of nature)and ontological (nature as a material entity) variables, an analysis of conservationpractices would be short-sighted were it not to also include a deontological compo-nent, so as to reveal the underlying values and commitments that such practicesimply and support.

Figure 1 presents visually this ‘‘trialectic of conservation.’’ As the figure details,all activities of conservation involve these three components: issues of knowledge(epistemological components), which center on those aforementioned ‘‘ideas’’ ofnature; material processes and artifacts (ontological components), which allow forinvestigations into the materiality that is being conserved; and values (deontologicalcomponents), to shed an analytic spotlight on the ‘‘whys’’ (why conserve?) and‘‘shoulds’’ (which view of nature should be conserved?) of conservation. Analysesof conservation practices have a tendency to unduly focus upon only one of thesecomponents, depending upon the disciplinary location of the analyst. In whatfollows, an effort is made to present a more balanced approach, particularly as it

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pertains to understanding all that is being conserved at SSE and the processes bywhich this is accomplished.

The Nature Known at SSE

The idea of nature held at SSE focuses on a non-reductionist epistemology.Compared with the reductionist epistemology of, say, biotechnology, which has beensaid to reduce seeds to genes (Carolan 2005c) and corn to genes and bags of nitrogen(Kloppenburg and Burrows 1996), SSE promotes a conception of nature that centerson interconnections between parts rather than the parts themselves. This point canbe gleaned, for example, from the slogan and logo of SSE: ‘‘Seed SaversExchange—Passing on our Vegetable Heritage.’’ This slogan speaks nothing of genesor coded bits of proteins: nothing, in other words, that would allude to a reductionistview of nature.

The logo of SSE also places emphasis on seeds and all that they represent, ratherthan on genes. The logo is of two hands, one above another, with the top hand gentlypouring a variety of vegetable seeds—not characteristics or strands of DNA—into ahand directly below it. All of this adds emphasis to the point that the idea of natureat SSE involves interconnections, between nonhuman organisms, culture, and people(of past, present, and future). These interconnections are captured in their use of theterm heritage. As one staff member described, ‘‘Our use of the term ‘heritage’includes but goes beyond how you usually think of the term—you know, of history,or cultural legacy, or something like that. It refers to a way of life. It’s about savingthe past, which includes the environment and biodiversity, for future genera-tions. . . . That’s how we view what we’re doing here.’’

Thus, to know nature in the space of SSE is to know, in the words of the quotedrespondent, ‘‘this way of life.’’ It is to know this heritage, as a series of interconnec-tions among things rather than as a reductionist account of nature and its founda-tional genetic material. The nature of SSE does not therefore end with themateriality of the seed. The seed is a metaphor for a type of nature that cannot bereduced to sequences of As, Ts, Cs, and Gs (see also Purdue 2000; Shiva 2000). Inshort, culture is as much the object of care at SSE—as much a part of the ‘‘nature’’it is working to protect—as biology.

In the words of one visitor, ‘‘Each seed has a story, about where it came fromand how it ended up here. There are people in those seeds. . . . Someone had to really

Figure 1. The trialectic of conservation.

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care about these seed enough to keep them going when everyone else was plantingother varieties that might have been sweeter, hardier, or just nicer to look at. Thoseare the people I’m talking about. We can’t see them anymore but they’re there. It wasbecause of their actions that we have this. I can’t forget that.’’

I can’t forget that. SSE embraces a similar philosophy. We can see this, forexample, in the numerous histories that are on display at SSE. These histories canbe found on the back of seed packets, on signs, and within their publications. Per-haps the most prominent of these involves one of the very first heritage variety seedsthat started the SSE collection. As its web site explains, ‘‘Seed Savers Exchange wasfounded in 1975 by Diane and Kent Whealy, after her terminally-ill grandfather gavethem the seeds of two garden plants, Grandpa Ott’s Morning Glory and GermanPink Tomato that his parents brought from Bavaria when they immigrated toSt. Lucas, Iowa in the 1870s’’ (Seed Savers 2006).

Grandpa Ott’s Morning Glory is thus more than simply a small, deep purpleflower with a red star in the throat. Also being saved is the history of this plant,of Diane Whealy’s (the cofounder of SSE) grandfather, John Ott, and his story ofemigrating from Bavaria to Iowa in the 1870 s. And members of SSE are well awareof this history.

In the words of one individual who had recently become an SSE member,‘‘Grandpa Ott’s is a beautiful flower and a beautiful story. It has special meaningto members because of not only its connection to Diane, but also because it wasone of the first [seeds] that kick started this whole organization.’’

Grandpa Ott’s is a beautiful flower and a beautiful story. Notice in this statementthe reference to Grandpa Ott’s as both a flower and a story (versus being a flowerwith a beautiful story), which represents yet another example of how conceptionsof nature at SSE go beyond any purely material heritage. It would be a mistake,then, to believe that these histories and stories are not an important piece of whatis being conserved at SSE.

This point becomes again obvious when we look at the specific social practicesengaged in at SSE. Not only can you read these stories on signs and on the back ofseed packets, but people regularly came to this space to share their own stories. Atthe annual members’ convention, for example, people do not come to SSE simply tobuy heritage variety seeds. They come from around the United States (and to a lesserextent from around the world) to continue this tradition of story (and history) tell-ing, which goes beyond seed sharing and exchanging information about how best topreserve various varieties of seed. As one visitor explained, ‘‘The annual meetinggives us an . . . opportunity to share our knowledge, you know, about where they[seeds] came from, what conditions they grow best in, and how to preserve themfrom year to year.’’

The idea of nature upheld at SSE is thus a hybrid, in that it contains bothmaterial and sociocultural components that have evolved together over time (see alsoPollan 2001). As one visitor described, ‘‘I remember coming here for the first timeand seeing varieties [of vegetables] that I hadn’t seen for ages. I mean, it’s one thingto see pictures of Golden Bantam [the first widely marketed variety of sweet cornintroduced by W. Atlee Burpee in 1902], but to come here and see it first hand, tofeel it—nothing can compare to that. It’s living history.’’

It’s living history. As living entities, these objects are, by definition, biologicaland thus in possession of a material ontology. Yet, simultaneously, to say they arealso a piece of history is to suggest that their embodiment goes beyond a purely

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material existence. This hybridity, however, is not unique to SSE. As EugeneThacker (2005, 3) has recently written regarding the rise of biotechnology in globa-lization:

Biological material literally moves from one body to another via a setof techniques and technologies. . . . In this sense, they form a kind ofnetwork wherein biological materials flow between nodes that may beindividual bodies or containment systems (‘‘banks’’). But such a networkis not purely biological, for it is aided by technical, medical, and legalsystems that mediate the bodies and the biological materials.

Here, Thacker is making a case for how biotechnology—of gene banks, ‘‘BigPharma,’’ and the Human Genome Project—has effectively created a hybrid of nat-ure that is both material (e.g., protein) and ideal (e.g., networked information). Yetsuch hybridity nevertheless still rests upon a reductionist epistemology, where genesare reduced to either ‘‘wet’’ genes of DNA or the ‘‘dry’’ genes of coded informationin data banks. At SSE, conversely, seeds always already possess such hybridity,without having to be first ‘‘disciplined’’ through the standardizing processes thataccompany a reductionist epistemology.

In the words of one respondent, ‘‘When I come here [SSE] and look at all of theseeds, I’m not thinking about, you know, the actual stuff that’s in the seeds, genesand stuff like that. I think of seeds like containers; a container that holds the actualplant itself but also all that great history that goes along with the plant.’’

‘‘Is any of your history contained in those seeds?,’’ I asked.‘‘Certainly,’’ he replied. ‘‘Having been raised around some of these plants there’s

a lot of my history here too. But also the stories that go along with each plant: howthey got here, who saved them. These seeds say a lot.’’

The Nature Conserved at SSE

What materiality is being conserved at SSE in light of its aforementioned viewtoward nature? Like more conventional banks, SSE dries, freezes, and stores its(orthodox) seeds (although I learned from staff that the primary storage methodinvolves simply keeping all the seeds, no matter whether they are ‘‘orthodox’’ or‘‘recalcitrant,’’ in a cool, dry room).1 Yet, beyond this, the similarities end. SSEplants about 10% of its stock each summer, thus placing its entire collection on a10-year rotation. This even applies to ‘‘orthodox’’ varieties, which could remain instorage (and do at conventional gene banks) for much longer periods. The purposeof this is to reduce the phenomenon of ‘‘evolutionary freeze.’’

Conventional gene banks have been criticized for ‘‘freezing’’ (both figurativelyand literally) the evolutionary development of organisms in relation to broaderenvironmental changes (e.g., global climate change) and in response to the continualevolution of pests and pathogens (Frankel et al. 1995; Hawkes et al. 2000). Thus,while the environment out of which the genetic material came continues toevolve–pests, weeds, pathogens, and the like–the genome does not. This, in theend, reduces the organism’s (and thus the gene’s) chances of success (in evolutionaryterms) when it is reintroduced back into the environment.

By viewing nature as mutable and interconnected to its broader socioculturalenvironment, SSE is cautious not to divorce its stock from these coevolutionary

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forces (see, e.g., Lewontin 2000). Thus, while SSE is concerned about issues of‘‘contamination’’–which is revealed by the precautions they take to minimize, forinstance, the cross-pollination between varieties–those involved with SSE do notwish to see the genome remain the same either. More specifically, changes to the gen-ome were allowed to occur, but arguably only within culturally prescribed limits. Inother words, heritage varieties had to look the part, literally.

In the words of one visitor, ‘‘I’m not sure what officially makes something aheritage vegetable. I don’t know, maybe it just has to be old, or just that it hasnot crossed or interbred with another variety. I guess it just means it has to be thesame today as it was centuries ago, you know, it has to still look the same’’(my emphasis).

Later, I asked the respondent if heritage varieties should still be allowed toevolve and change. Responding to this question positively, I then proceeded toask, ‘‘What if those small incremental changes at the genetic level resulted in changesin phenotype–that is, it changed the appearance of the plant in some noticeable way?Would it still be the same heritage variety?’’

He replied by saying, ‘‘I guess if it changed the look of the plant I don’t think itwould be the same anymore, no.’’

‘‘Why?’’ I asked.‘‘The look of these plants is partially what’s preserved here. If we lose those

physical characteristics, we’ve lost the plant, or at least an important part of it.’’This response gives us a glimpse at how ideas of nature can affect the materi-

ality that is ultimately expressed, which here revolves around specific phenotypictraits. Yet this does not do justice to revealing just how ecologically ‘‘open’’ thenature of SSE really is. This brings us back to why SSE goes to such lengths toinclude as many other people, gardens, and environments in this ‘‘saving’’ processas possible. As mentioned, SSE does much more than conserve and sell heirloomvariety seeds. It also instills within others a desire to save these seeds and teachesthose that are interested how to do this, through, for example, publications andpublic events (such as their annual meetings). In doing this, one could argue thatthe nature SSE is seeking to conserve cannot be housed in any one seed bank orfarm alone, but must include gardens, flower pots, and seed bins around theworld.

For instance, while SSE works to reduce contamination between plant varieties,this issue was of far less concern between members and visitors when raising and sav-ing their own heritage varieties. One member explained it to me as follows: ‘‘We allrecognize that there is no such thing as a ‘pure’ heritage variety. I mean, think of allthe genetic variability that existed among these plants a hundred years ago. What wecall heritage today was simply one gene line out of a diverse pool of lines. . . . These[heritage] plants used to be allowed to evolve, why shouldn’t they continue to dothat?’’

Nor is this view antithetical to how the staff at SSE viewed what they weredoing: ‘‘We do what we can about issues of cross pollination. Having said that,we don’t ascribe to the philosophy that such interactions are necessarily bad, and Ithink if you talk to members they’re quite open to letting their seeds live and interactwith their environment.’’

This also highlights a broader debate about what the mission of heritage seed-saving organizations should be. That is, should they work to conserve (and teachothers to do the same) these varieties in a way that preserves an ‘‘original’’ genetic

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lineage, which would therefore require genetically mapping these varieties to ensuretheir ‘‘purity’’ (but, then, who decides what constitutes a ‘‘pure’’ variety?). Or, con-versely, should these organizations adopt a looser view of conservation, which valuesgenetic variability over genetic immutability? For SSE, at least, staff, members, and(nonmember) visitors appeared to overwhelmingly accept the more mutable view,which embraces change over immutability.

Besides justifying this reasoning in ecological terms (e.g., because plants are sup-posed to evolve), economic reasons for such a position were also presented. Asexpressed by several respondents, the aforementioned looser view of conservationwas more conducive for creating economic independence, for it allowed individualsto save their own seeds irrespective of how ‘‘true’’ (in genetic terms) they remained totheir ancestors. The following visitor summed this point up well: ‘‘The problem withthe idea of freezing in time and saving some ‘pure’ genetic lineage is that it createseconomic dependence between growers like myself and these seed saving organiza-tions because it doesn’t encourage people to save their seeds.’’ This statement alsoprovides a point of transition to the third component of conservation, which centerson the normative reasons that underlie our ideas toward nature and the materialitythose conceptions help to maintain.

Creating Reasons to Conserve

As argued, conservation is an inherently normative process. Yet these value judg-ments are often disguised: in, for example, so-called objective statements about bio-diversity, ecosystem health, or ecosystem integrity (Lackey 2001; Wicklum andDavies 1995). These value statements frequently remain unarticulated and hiddenbecause related discussions are not open to public discussion and debate (Funtowiczand Ravetz 1992; Jasanoff and Wynne 1998; Wynne 2001).

In conventional gene banks, for example, that normative input is supplied by themarket, neo-liberalism, and globalization: For example, genes should be preservedfor the information they contain and the future assemblages (and associated profits)they can help to create through such growing fields as pharmacogenomics and bio-informatics (Thacker 2005; Zweiger 2001). SSE, on the other hand, seeks to providean alternative to such profit-driven, instrumental prescriptions by grounding theirnormative arguments within a broader narrative.

Focusing too narrowly on what is saved in this space can cause one to ignore thearrangements of space and incorporation of symbols employed to instill withinpeople those important presuppositional ‘‘shoulds’’ that lie within all environmental=conservation policy discussions. The history found on the back of seed packets,sharing stories at the annual members’ meetings, paintings in the visitors’ center,and well-tended gardens displaying a diversity of colors, aromas, and tactile sensa-tions: All seek to convey reasons for why the seeds being saved at SSE are valuableand should be conserved. SSE is thus as much about instilling within people reasonsto support these conservation efforts as it is about saving the aforementioned materialand sociocultural artifacts. As one staff member explained, ‘‘We try to make peopleactually want to save seeds.’’

This is not to say that SSE neglects attempts to appeal to people’s economicsensibilities. Yet these economic appeals vary considerably from those of, say, biotech-nology and agribusiness (Paul and Steinbrecher 2003). For instance, agribusiness seeksto discourage seed saving through ‘‘terminator’’ technologies (Kloppenburg 1988;

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Shiva 1991). In doing this, growers have a tremendous disincentive to save seeds,because doing so will mean significantly reduced yields in the following years (that is,if one can raise anything at all). The economic implications of seed saving are thereforesignificant, for it means not having to rely upon others (agribusiness, SSE, etc.) for seedsfor future growing seasons.

The reasons for this are hinted at in the mission statement of SSE. To repeat asentence from this earlier mentioned statement, ‘‘When people grow and save seeds,they join an ancient tradition as stewards, nurturing our diverse, fragile, genetic andcultural heritage.’’ The seeds being saved and sold at SSE are not their seeds, nor arethey Monsanto’s or Pioneer’s. They are part of our genetic and cultural heritage.As such, they cannot be said to be anyone’s proprietary technology.

This view also shapes, and is shaped by, the previously mentioned non-reductionist epistemology of SSE and its corresponding conception of nature. Beforecapital can penetrate a commodity, it must be first view that commodity as isolatedfrom its broader ecological assemblages (McAfee 2003). This is because it is mucheasier to commodify (and thus own) an ontologically independent object, versusan entity that exists in a dynamic relationship with its broader environment. Byrejecting this view of nature, SSE creates a type of conservation that cannot restsolely upon market dominated rationalities. Instead, SSE creates a model of conser-vation that, while potentially appealing on an economic level (e.g., saving seeds savesmoney), also resonates with individuals’ cultural rationality, which emphasizes fam-iliar experiences and historically embedded and embodied knowledge (Fischer 2000).

This cultural rationality is important. If this space were driven solely by econ-omic imperatives, much would be lost and forgotten–from, for example, the storyabout Grandpa Ott and his travels from Bavaria to the United States to the symbolicsignificance associated with oddly shaped cantaloupes. In the words of one long-timemember: ‘‘There’s something for everyone here when it comes to why people savetheir seeds. Some do it as a labor of love; others for deep philosophical reasons;and for some it’s a matter of saving money.’’

Conclusion

This article has examined a heritage seed-saving organization, the Seed SaversExchange (SSE). To begin, analytic emphasis was placed on how SSE conceives ofnature (and seeds in particular). Yet, in an attempt to present a more balanced ana-lytic, focus then turned to how these conceptions shape, and are in turn shaped by,the materiality that is ultimately conserved. Thus, as stated earlier, this article seeksto move beyond a purely constructivist analytic, to one that examines the ecologicaleffects of those ‘‘nature’’ constructions. Beyond this, attention was also placed ondetailing the value statements of conservation as they apply to SSE. This is to rem-edy the point that these normative underpinnings are too often ignored in socioen-vironmental analyses of conservation policies and practices. As argued, allconservation policies and practices rest upon normative assumptions about whattype of nature ought to be conserved. In this article, I have worked to detail whatsome of those value statements are as they relate to SSE and how they are used toinstill within people similar commitments to conservation overall and seed savingin particular. When taken together, these three mutually influencing compo-nents—our conceptions of nature, the materiality actually being conserved, and the

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values imbedded in all conservation debates, policies, and practices—signify what Icall the ‘‘trialectic of conservation.’’

SSE reminds us that seeds are more than containers of protein, carbohydrates,and water. To speak of seeds in the case of SSE is to also speak metaphorically, ofecological interrelationships (between genes, organisms, and the environment), pastgenerations, stories, and culture. When seen in this light, the conservation of seeds(and nature more generally) takes on a new meaning and urgency. Spaces likeSSE encourage us to see beyond the narrow lens of profit-driven instrumentalism–as in what these seeds can do for us in terms of creating new drugs, biotechnologies,and the like–by allowing us to value seeds for reasons that cannot be fully grasped byeconomic rationality alone. Through this, organizations like SSE help us to realizethe true cost of losing these seeds, in the fullest sense of the term.

Note

1. In nontechnical terms, seeds that are unable to withstand drying below a certain moisturelevel (before being frozen) are called ‘‘recalcitrant seeds,’’ whereas those that can be driedare called ‘‘orthodox seeds.’’

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