About the Local Seeds Coalition

The Local Seeds Coalition (LSC) is a group of seed growers, stewards, enthusiasts, and non-profit organizations working together to develop shared resources and capacity for advocacy to promote local, ethical, and diverse seed stewardship among our seed communities and beyond. All food begins with seed, but seed remains the least transparent input in our food and agricultural systems. We believe that bringing investment and awareness to local, open-pollinated seed will increase equity, transparency, and highlight the value local seeds offer to our cultures and environments. 

 

To achieve our mission, the LSC leads community engagement, resource development, education, seed sharing, and amplification of coalition events and resources.

This coalition uses sociocratic working groups to collaboratively work on goals, and leverage its network of members to expand our project impact and diversity of expertise. 

 

Working in collaboration with the communities we serve ensures  that this work is culturally conscious, multigenerational, and elevates local knowledge into all the materials and programming we create. As the LSC evolves we will work  to maintain trust, flexibility, and dialogue to encourage further participation for our regional seed systems.

 

 

The Local Seeds Coalition is fiscally sponsored by IFOAM  North America, a duly recognized Regional Body of the International Federation of Agriculture Movements.    ​

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Get in touch: hello@localseeds.org

 

​​​​​​​​Read the Proposal:

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This proposal synthesizes findings from 96 interviews conducted across 29 US states and 8 countries, plus 44 written responses, two coalition gatherings, and three advisory committee meetings with representatives from national seed organizations. Seven trained volunteer interviewers used standardized questions, and a team of six analysts reviewed the data using the Condens research platform.  

 

Ideas were contributed by everyone involved in the process, with special thanks to: 

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• Toby Cain, the coalition convener and strategist. ​

• Miguel Olvera, our volunteer coordinator, who contributed design and facilitation for presentations, reports and proposals. ​

• Melanie Levy spent countless hours on research analysis and training other volunteers ​

• Anna Mieritz planned and facilitated several meetings. 

• Julia Dakin, project manager and administrative support. 

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Writing Acknowledgements: 

The proposal was written with help from Chanda Robinson Banks, Julia Dakin, Michelle Dang, David Gould, Edmund Frost, and Mike Bollinger and others.  It was edited by  Masha Zager and Alan Lewis, with design and formatting by Miguel Olvera.   Regional and cultural labeling was inspired by Seed Worker Organizing, Molly Travis, and Amy June of Local Contexts. ​​​​

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Thank you to our volunteers who interviewed 96 people: 

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Anna Mieritz

Gregg Mueller

Janna Mintz

Toby Cain

Julia Dakin

Katie Filar

Michelle Dang

Miguel Olvera​​​​

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​Coalition Members: ​