Transition Farm is actively building associations with organizations working to keep seed within the public domain. We consider these links essential to our seed network. They enrich our work and allow us to work with reciprocity - contributing to and benefiting from seed work.
Open Source Seed Initiative
Today, only a handful of companies account for most of the world’s commercial breeding and seed sales. Increasingly, patenting and restrictive contracts are used to enhance the power and control of these companies over the seeds and the farmers that feed the world.
Patented and protected seeds cannot be saved, replanted, or shared by farmers and gardeners. And because there is no research exemption for patented material, plant breeders at universities and small seed companies cannot use patented seed to create the new crop varieties that should be the foundation of a just and sustainable agriculture.
Inspired by the free and open source software movement that has provided alternatives to proprietary software, OSSI was created to free the seed – to make sure that the genes in at least some seed can never be locked away from use by intellectual property rights.
To this end, the OSSI Pledge asks breeders and stewards of crop varieties to pledge to make their seeds available without restrictions on use, and to ask recipients of those seeds to make the same commitment. High Mowing has been a proud partner of OSSI in developing the framework for Open Source seed. We strongly support the work they’re doing to create a pool of Open Source varieties, to connect farmers and gardeners to suppliers of Open Source seed, and to inform and educate citizens about seed issues.
The Transition Farm Open Source Seed Initiative seeds include:
Double Density Lettuce
Flashy Trout Back Lettuce
Jadeite Lettuce
Jester Lettuce
Joker Lettuce
Rosencrantz Lettuce
Stock Red Roaster Capsicum
Triple Purple Orach
South Anna Butternut Pumpkin
Chocolate Lightening Tomato
Saucy Mary Tomato
To learn more about Open Source Seeds please visit: osseeds.org
