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Introduction:

You probably do not know this or think of it every time you eat nshima or fresh maize (corn), but the fact that you can do this is no small thing - actually it is one of early man&#39;s great achievements. Indian tribes in what is now Mexico did not have the advantages of the people of the Middle East, where many of the modern cereals, wheat, barley and rye grew wild and where the grains were easy to harvest and use as food. There is no wild maize, the closest relative is teosinte, a plant with very small seeds, and very unsuitable as crop, because it drops the seeds making it difficult to harvest. More than 16 genes have been changed to develop the modern maize - a feat modern scientists have given up trying to do and which they say that would be worthy of a Nobel Prize for the person managing this.

But the Olmec Indians in Southern Mexico did this more than 4,000 years ago with the result that as maize spread, it became possible to grow enough food for large civilizations to flourish all over the Americas.

In our modern times, the challenge is not only to develop new seed varieties that are better suited to the more difficult and warmer times we are facing - but increasingly also to safeguard the existing varieties as these are pushed out by industrialized farming. It is crucial that we keep these, since we will need them to make the new better adapted varieties and to produce varieties to new pests and diseases as these appear.

Farmers should be able to produce their own seeds. One reason is the above. To save the local varieties. Another is economy. It is simply too risky to become dependant on the huge multinational companies that control seed production. They can set the prices as they want - and do exactly this, as was seen when food prices exploded in 2008. Seed prices jumped even more.
So farmers need to learn the techniques of producing open pollinated varieties, so they can keep the seeds from one year to the next, and do not have to buy the hybrid seeds that have become so widespread, because the farmers are forced to buy them year after year - an ideal situation if you are a seed company.

Directive:

<ol>
	<li>Read the selected pages in the file on seed production</li>
	<li>Decide to learn to produce seeds of maize and beans (or two other crops that are relevant in your area)</li>
	<li>Make a set of posters for each of the two crops on how to produce and store the seeds. </li>
	<li>Start up your own test to produce seeds from the two crops (this means you must have access to some plants of each kind at the right time) and write a short description of what you have done, and what you will do when the time comes for this part.</li>
	<li>Send your posters (or the text for the posters) to your tutor.</li>
</ol>
Files: 
 
F1. Seed saving for beginners, from www.seedsave.org. 
 
F2. Seed production maize and millet, from CIMMYT.

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