The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food by Janisse Ray

The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food Reviews

• 
  Scot

  Janisse Ray is likely the best nature writer of this generation! She combines a knowledge and passion for the environment with a down-home view of the culture and the people working in their own ways to protect it.
  
  The Seed Underground is no exception - I laughed, I cried, I was inspired and enraged. I saw a passion for seeds and plants that was not cultivated through a microscope but through front porch conversations, walks in a garden, and in gatherings with others who shared that passion.
  
  There is some valuable information in here on how to be a seed saver yourself, but more importantly, it is a call to be in touch with the world around us and to resist its commodification.
  
  Highly recommended for gardeners or would be gardeners, plant lovers, nature-ophiles, and anyone who likes a good story and is open to a deeper dive into the world around them.
• 
  Monica

  This book was amazing. It totally cemented my determination to get involved in saving and growing seeds as part of ensuring the future of our food diversity and security.
• 
  Amanda

  It's high summer, my gardens are flourishing, and I'm loving it. Hummingbirds and bumblebees are too. The blossoms and pollination going on are fabulous.
  I'm growing an array of heirloom peppers and tomatoes this year that are a ton of green thumb fun. They've brought a whole new level of delight to my gardening game, and I'm thankful to those who've preserved these rare beauties.
  After reading this book, I might give seed preservation a try.
  If you haven't planted a seed lately, or grown your own vegetable of some sort (or all sorts!) - I fully endorse it.
  Homegrown food variety for posterity!
• 
  Stephie Jane Rexroth

  "'The system is so broken,' she said. Not only broken, but destructive and self-destructive.' By 'system,' I figured she meant the agricultural or food system. Maybe she meant the entire political system. But I didn't ask. I just listened. 'I see in activism a kind of futility,' she said, brown eyes sincere. 'The real power is in doing. The real power is in making the system irrelevant. That means nonparticipation in the existing broken system.'... Sylvia wasn't protesting anything in her peaceful garden: 'What I am doing is making a broken system irrelevant.'"
• 
  Jim Folger

  Janisse Ray has written a passionate argument for retreating to an earlier era in American life when farming was the main occupation. Modern industry and “better living through chemistry,” has altered our economy and reduced biodiversity in the process.
  The author describes the joys of simple living that encourages us to become a part of a growing movement to experience a greater variety of foods through the use of a diverse number of plant species and the seeds that produce them. In the process, she uncovers the shortcomings of a capitalist society’s approach to food production and genetically modified foods controlled by a few major corporations.
  
  I was reminded of an earlier time near the end of the Vietnam War when the Whole Earth Catalog was paving the way for an alternative way of life, and more self-reliance.
  I very much liked the description of Italian regions going back hundreds of years of “where we live and what we live is who we are.” The history of food in the U.S. only dates back to 1500, after we wiped out the history of the native people.
  
  With a compendium of facts about seeds and their use combined with folksy anecdotes, Ms. Lee has written a compelling case for the importance of seeds and their relationship to modern day farming.
• 
  Rebecca Gregory

  I purchased this book from the author when she spoke at a paddling and camping event near the Ohoopee river in Georgia near where she lives.
  
  This was a very interesting book and a pleasure to read. It made me aware of the myriad of issues that surround our seeds.
  
  I grew up on an Iowa farm in the 50s and 60s and still have a few acres of farmland in Iowa. I was particularly interested in Ray's comments involving Iowa. Farming practices have changed dramatically since I was raised. This book has provided me with some questions to ask the senior member of the farm corporation I rent my land to. I grew up with him and have known him almost all of his life. I know he is a contentious farmer and good steward of the land but he is not an organic farmer.
  
  It was a pleasure to see Janisse and Raven. I treasure Janisse and the awareness she inspires in others.
  
  
  
• 
  Megan

  Great book to begin 2020 with to really plant the seed of food sovereignty in my brain! Fascinating topic and Ray is quite a skilled writer. After reading this book, I feel invigorated and inspired to save seed and create a beautiful garden in the near future. My critique and reasoning for 4 stars is this: while the book was quite encompassing and educational, Janisse comes at the info with the experience of being white in the deep South and owning land, so I am hoping to expand my horizons and read experiences from Robin Kimmerer and similar authors to get a well rounded understanding of food sovereignty as it relates to other experiences and histories different from the ones I am familiar with. Would recommend this book though!
• 
  Mary Dansak

  I'll be honest. I didn't know how I would like this book as I'm not much of a gardener, but because Janisse Ray wrote it I'd be remiss not to try. This book is about so much more than seeds. This is a five-star romp through the wild wild world of those who love seeds, who see fastidiously collect, label, and store these promises of a future with food, and it turns out, seeds are so much more interesting than I though. Another beautiful book by one of our great voices for the wild things.
• 
  J.S.

  Home gardeners are increasingly turning to "heirloom" varieties of plants. Whether it's to remember flowers their parents or grandparents kept or to find better tasting vegetables, it's a growing movement of sorts. And Ms. Ray recites (several times) statistics of how many varieties are no longer available - and the numbers are disconcerting. Seed companies have bred hybrids to the point where a gardener cannot save seeds from one year to the next and have them grow true. Even more distressing, companies have turned to genetically-modified (GM) crops that have genetic traits artificially inserted for resistance to pests or - alarmingly - chemical herbicides. Ray argues that we have lost control of our food supply risking imminent collapse and are in need of a revolution.
  
  I really looked forward to reading this book. I recently began planting vegetables again and was interested in growing some "heirloom" varieties mainly because so many modern hybrids have been bred for output or shelf-life instead of taste. (I've even ordered seed catalogs from Seed Savers and other small heirloom companies.) Unfortunately, my results have so far been poor (no one in the family liked the taste of the varieties I tried) and I hoped this book might provide some guidance. However, as Ms. Ray writes in the Introduction "This is not a textbook on seed saving. I am looking to inspire you with my own life." (pg. xv)
  
  And she tells us about her farm and visits to others to acquire old varieties. Some of these episodes are interesting, and she offers a few bits of advice, like pollinating squash flowers or saving tomato seeds or growing sweet potatoes. This is when the book really shines. But, "You won't get many of those details from me here," she writes. "My goal is simply to plant a seed." (pg 151) Much of the book is a paranoid screed against "big ag" and "big chemical" companies and how evil they and our government and justice system are (and some of her stories are indeed troublesome). "Science is worrisome when it only serves the interests of mercenaries and their employees... infecting our food supply with greed." (pg. 12) And in spite of her claim in the Preface that "I do not feel hopeless" (pg. ix) she later says "Who needs hope? ...It's not hope or love that keep me going. It's fight." (pg. 193)
  
  Ms. Ray describes herself as a "granola" (a "back-to-the-earth" hippie who grew up post-60s) and comes off as a Luddite when it comes to technology. We get an earful of her philosophy of not flying and avoiding fossil-fuels ("Plastic is bad stuff." pg. 129) and basically living apart from modern society. Her attitude is militant and she calls anyone saving seeds a "revolutionary" and seems to find meaning in fighting modernity. But even she admits by the end that not all technology or corporations are evil. Sometimes hybrids combine beneficial traits and are useful, and public and private companies can do "good" (see pg. 174). (Incidentally, this is why many gardeners choose hybrids over heirlooms - they often grow better and are more reliable even if the taste is often inferior. And buying a packet of seeds for a dollar or two is more convenient than the effort to save your own, as even she admits.) Still... I completely relate to her desires for older varieties and will continue to look for ones that grow well for me and that the family likes. I'll just have to look elsewhere for information on them.
• 
  Todd Wheeler

  Part memoir, part exploration of the seed saving community, Ray's book spans a century where seed variety for our foods has shrunk dramatically. The main cause is the bottom line greed of multi-national corporations that want to control seed stock and their genes, not for better food but for more profit.
  
  There is hope. Like the explosion of interest in CSA's and locavores, interest in regional seed saving and swapping is reviving. For example several towns in Maine have passed ordinances described as "food sovereignty" to take local control of the sale of local goods "like fresh milk or locally slaughtered meat." p. 168
  
  One chapter describes how to save seeds from a tomato, a deceptively easy process of leaving the 'goop' in a mason jar to ferment for some days. The fermentation and mold remove chemicals that can prohibit the seeds from growing. Best tried with local heirloom varieties; the hybrid/GMO tomatoes from the supermarket won't grow from those seeds. They are designed not to.
  
  My favorite quote from the book:
  "Like seed, each of us has traits hidden deep inside that under the right conditions can emerge. ... We can become something even stronger and more useful than we were before." p.67
• 
  Jenny

  This book contains some interesting stories and some good information about collecting, preserving and saving seeds. It has been criticized for being inadequately fact checked and I was disappointed in the amount of technical information that was provided without specific references or footnotes. Some of the people put forward as scientific experts are well respected experts, others do work that is questionable but all are treated the same way by the author as long as their information fits the argument that she is making at the moment.
  
  Her experiences on her own farm are interesting and her enthusiasm for collecting and preserving seeds to grow heirloom varieties of different food plants is evident in her writing. Some of her history is suspect -- writers and social commentators have been bemoaning the death of the American small town and migration from town to city since the 19th century, and the agrarian economy that Thomas Jefferson touted was supported by slave labor. The author's efforts to grow her own food and reduce her personal carbon footprint are noble but ignores the larger challenge involved in feeding all of the people in the world today a nutritious diet as climate change is making that task even more challenging.
• 
  Christopher

  'Putting the culture back into agriculture', is mentioned somewhere in the book, which is an apt summary for The Seed Underground. The basic idea is that every seed and seed variety carries the story of the people who bred and planted it. As seeds are lost or become homogenized, those stories are lost, and the authors main goal is as much culture saving as it is seed saving. While I liked this book and it is sprinkled with great little insights, the 3-star rating reflects that it reads like a string of rambling blog posts and could have used more thought about the overall structure of the book and it's message, and less repetitive flowery prose.
• 
  Teresa McCarthy

  A good primer on the issues around seed diversity, but what I especially love are the stories she tells of the farmers she meets and the seed varieties she's come across. I'll be using her method to save some seeds from the heritage pink tomato I've got growing in my garden this year. And she's inspired me to share more of my great-aunt Vivienne's bean seeds, which her family brought from Belgium generations ago and have been growing in Manitoba and British Columbia ever since.
• 
  Harriet

  Janisse is so passionate about this topic! I love her descriptions of meeting such interesting figures in the seed-saving world. I got a little bogged down in the details at times but the importance of saving seeds and preserving heirloom varieties. Terrific book for those of us concerned with the chemical attacks on all our food sources and the non sustainable methods that most farms are using! Very inspiring!
• 
  Deanna

  Beautifully written book about the importance of seed saving. Includes some very basic information on how to do it. Ended up jealous of Ray's Georgia gardening season and determined to try saving some seed this year.
• 
  Beth Young

  One of her best. I dare you to read this book and not want to be involved in gardening and Seed Saving!
• 
  Renea Winchester

  Another beautiful book by Janisse Ray. Her passion makes me want to be a better steward of the earth.
• 
  Julie

  This is not really a technical book about the process of growing seeds. So I can honestly say I selected it by accident and when I opened the book and started the preface, I wasn’t sure I was going to continue. But with every page, Janisse Ray’s well-written anecdotes and shared wisdom from seed savers across the world, hooked me a little more. This is a collection of musings, ideas and stories about the need to grow and evolve heirloom seeds - to join the ‘revolution’. Though written more than a decade ago, the book holds up and is actually pretty good at telling the history of GM seeds.
  
  The book is divided into chapters but I consider them more as small essays on a particular theme. The essay “What is Broken” outlines the ways in which the American (and Canadian by extension) food system is broken (from corporate interest to killing pollinators); another chapter focuses on the basics of seed saving. But it is the essays about individuals who are saving seeds for future generations that make a lasting impact. Chapter 16 is called “The Pollinator”, and refers not to a winged creature or animal but a man named Dave Cavagnaro. Ray tells his story as he takes the reader through a very detailed experience of hand-pollinating squash, complete with masking tape!
  
  This is a great book to read in small sections in the dark of winter as you begin to plan your garden for the coming year.
• 
  Sue

  Ray's book was written ten years ago, and I am sure there are pertinent updates that I should know, but her alarming critique of big ag, its development and ownership of gm seeds is eye opening. She explains the great loss of diversity that has taken place as a few companies have taken control of seeds. She takes readers into the gardens of those who are trying to propagate heirloom seeds, seeds developed by small farmers and gardeners through generations in specific micro-climates. She explains how they hand-germinate, save the seed, and share with others. Reading this book made me want to start searching for small seed companies, seed saver groups, etc. - all in a time when I was thinking about giving up gardening and letting someone else do it. LOL. It also made me think of the many times my dad said today's squash just doesn't taste as good as the ones his mom grew. Could her acorn squash have been a heritage seed, long gone? Who knows.
  
  Big ag with its bio-tech says they are preparing to feed the world, but their critics caution that they are endangering the food supply, taking control of all sale of seed, and really making impossible for small farmers to survive. Meanwhile we have lost hundreds of varieties of plants that nourished previous generations.
  
• 
  Lizzie J

  4.5 stars
  
  This is an excellent book on an issue that I didn't even realize had existed before a few days ago. It's honestly scary how much we have lost when it comes to seeds and the fruits and vegetables that used to grow from them. The book is well-written and mixed statistics and science with her own personal story. It was entertaining, and I enjoyed getting to see peeks into the lives of other farmers and seed-savers. Not to mention getting to hear all about the different crops. I think most interesting was about the woman who grew sweet potatoes. Who knew there were other types other than the standard orange ones you find at Walmart?
  
  My only critique of the book is that sometimes the author seems to be very opinionated when it comes to this topic, and sometimes her bias shows through. Obviously, it's her book, and I have no issue with reading her opinion, but in some sections (like when she's discussing science and statistics and the more cut and dry aspects of what's happening) it can be very obvious. But, again, this is only a small critique, and I can only think of a few instances of it happening in the entire book.
• 
  Mark

  Ms. Ray enthralls with her storytelling. When waxing about dirt, tomato varieties or white trash, she is unparalleled. When preaching however...she just sounds like everybody else. Which means she comes across as "everything sucks except the things that I say don't suck". If I wanted to hear that I would just turn on CNN. But there was just enough down to earth storytelling to keep me enthralled.
• 
  Rick Jackofsky

  A foreboding, yet optimistic, look at the current state and future of agriculture in the age of genetic modification. This book is mostly a collection of amusing and inspirational anecdotes about saving heirloom seeds intending to inspire others to join the "Growing Revolution." The resource section contains a fairly extensive live of seed saving groups, publications, and seed suppliers.
• 
  Laura

  Lovely book, especially enjoyed the opening section as well as some of the stories of certain seeds and the author's childhood. My first thoughts on reading was that it was refreshing to read a well-written (literary-speaking) non-fiction book about seeds/food. A little too political for me at times. Fantastic section in the back about saving seeds and resources.
• 
  Bowdoin

  Reader in group - I just finished reading The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food by Janisse Ray, which is this this year's Community Read. I found it difficult to get into at first; Ray's tone can come across as self-righteous and moralistic. However, her love of seeds and gardening, evident in every page of this book, is a bit contagious. By the end of The Seed Underground, I grew to appreciate the Slow Food and locavore movements much more than I had at the start of the book. Janisse Ray shows the patience, commitment and passion of these movements in The Seed Underground, as well as their sense of urgency. She makes a convincing argument for the necessity of preserving seed diversity and local distinction through seed exchange and open pollinated seed growing.
• 
  Dianne

  The lack of seed diversity is greatly endangering our global food supply, as heirloom crop varieties disappear and agribusiness takes over the production (and patenting) of a very limited supply. We should all be much more concerned about this, support seed saver initiatives, and like Janisse, be serious about growing and saving open-p0llinated seeds. She explains why, and how!
• 
  Lauren

  This book has encouraged me to grow my own food and save seeds! I liked that she gives examples of people all around the country who are saving seeds. It helps me believe it’s possible. She also talks a lot about big Ag and how it’s important to support small farmers in preserving culture.