History and Mission
Native Seeds/SEARCH is a non-profit conservation organization based in Tucson, Arizona. Since 1983, we have become a major regional seed bank and a leader in the heirloom seed movement. Our seed bank is a unique resource for both traditional and modern agriculture. It includes 1800 varieties of arid-land adapted agricultural crops, many of them rare or endangered. We promote the use of these ancient crops and their wild relatives by distributing seeds to traditional communities and to gardeners world wide. Currently we offer 350 varieties from the collection we steward, grown out at our Conservation Farm in Patagonia, Arizona, and associated products through our online store, annual seedlisting, and our retail store.
Our mission took root when Native Americans on the Tohono O'odham reservation near Tucson wished to grow traditional crops, but could not locate seeds. Traditionally, southwestern Native American farmers produced a great variety of food despite the region's marginal growing conditions. After centuries of environmental destruction, cultural change, and land transfers, these farming systems have survived – but just barely. As late as 1925, the Tohono O'odham people cultivated 10,000 acres in Southern Arizona with traditional floodwater methods. Today, only a few scattered plots remain. For one tribe living near the Grand Canyon, the process has reached its logical and devastating conclusion: all crop varieties have been lost.
Crop loss means an inevitable reduction in genetic diversity: thousands of years of evolution down the drain. Conservation of heirloom seeds- those seeds chosen by generations of farmers and gardeners because they have adapted to the growing conditions in a certain area- on the other hand, promotes sustainable agriculture by allowing people to choose from a vast array of crops that carry with them the genetic adaptations for particular growing conditions. Food security depends on agricultural biodiversity – the genes and gene combinations that serve as the raw materials used by farmers and plant breeders alike to develop new crop varieties better adapted to an uncertain and changing environment. Beside the expected drought tolerance of desert plants, many of these crops are resistant to rusts, insects, chemicals, and other stresses. They provide an irreplaceable "genetic library" to draw upon to ensure sustainable, environmentally safe agriculture in the future.
Crop loss, in human terms, is equally severe. Traditional farmers are a stabilizing force in many Native American communities. They conserve historic seeds adapted to local conditions, keep traditional agricultural and culinary practices alive, donate crops for ceremonies and feast days, and feed extended families from their fields. We are as concerned about the loss of ecological relationships, the traditions of humans and plants evolving together, as we are about the extinction of a single species. When peoples once sustained by agriculture lose their agricultural traditions, their survival as a culture may also be at risk. For many Native American tribes in the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico, these relationships are endangered. The good news is that a tide is sweeping through Native American communities, traditional crops and foods are again sought for their power to nourish body and soul. Native Seeds/SEARCH is grateful for the opportunity to return the seeds of grandparents to people who seek them, and to make available to everyone this wondrous gift, the delicious joy of seeds.
